American Politics

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2762688]Wrong. First, there's nothing "lingering" about 7. 7% YoY CPI inflation. Secondly, as I said previously, through the latest quarter for which data is available, the annual increase in corporate profits, 7.7%, was less than the YoY CPI inflation, 9.1%. Furthermore, the annual increase in corporate profits was only 0.95% of GDP.

Wow, you've really lightened up your criteria. For about a month you've been asking me and others to come up with a list of bills "revered" by the American public passed when a Republican was president, and Republicans controlled the House and the Senate. You came up with your own list going back to the Roosevelt era. Now there are two problems replying to your challenge. The first is, what you really want is a list of bills revered by Democrats passed when Republicans controlled all the levers of government. The second is that over the period in question Democrats controlled the presidency, senate and house for 36 years, compared to only 8 years for Republicans.

This new challenge is a lot easier, because you don't limit it to the few years when Republicans controlled everything.

I lied by the way, I don't really give diddly squat about that participation certificate, so I'm not going to look up the names of the bills like you asked. But these measures are what I revere that were passed during the first two years of the aforementioned presidents' terms.

The cut in the federal income tax rate from 70% to 50% during the Reagan administration.

The cut in the federal capital gains and dividends tax rates to 15% during the George W. Bush adminstration.

The cut in the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% during the Trump administration.

Now if you wanted to expand that from the first two years, then I also revere the cut in the tax rate to 28% and the cut in the capital gains rate to 20% during the later parts of the Reagan and Clinton administrations respectively.

Onto your broader question. Again, I'm a neoliberal, anarcho capitalist, libertarian, small government Republican, so I tend to revere bills that cut the size and power of federal government. However, here's a list Roll Call put out on their 50th anniversary. These are their "ten bills that really mattered" from 1955 to 2005, according to a blue ribbon panel of Congressional scholars. I believe we should kick out the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which most of us here probably agree sucked. Of the nine left, five were passed during Democrat presidential administrations and four during Republican administrations. And furthermore, of the five Democrat bills, at least three, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act passed with a higher percentage of Republicans voting in favor than Democrats.

[URL]https://rollcall.com/2005/05/02/ten-bills-that-really-mattered/[/URL]

Civil Rights Act (1964) Democrat.

Voting Rights Act (1965) Democrat.

Medicare and Medicaid acts (1965) Democrat.

Federal-Aid Highway Act (1956) Republican.

Economic Recovery Tax Act (1981) Republican.

National Defense Education Act (1958) Republican.

Amendments to Immigration and Nationality Act (1965) Democrat.

Clean Air Act Amendments (1970) Republican.

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996) Democrat.[/QUOTE]Your answer:

[QUOTE]The cut in the federal income tax rate from 70% to 50% during the Reagan administration.

The cut in the federal capital gains and dividends tax rates to 15% during the George W. Bush adminstration.

The cut in the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% during the Trump administration.[/QUOTE]You do know that those bits of legislation passed by Reagan, Bush2 and Trump in their first year or so added huge numbers to the deficit ($2. 5 Trillion in Trump's case), produced zero positive results vs negative results and did zero to lesson but plenty to exacerbate the Great Repub Crashes, Great Repub Recessions and Great Repub Massive Jobs Losses that followed, right?

And only ONE each? And that one, at best, mostly produced nothing in exchange for the huge amounts they added to the deficit while, at worst, contributed to the three worst Great Repub Crashes, Great Repub Recessions and Great Repub Massive Job Losses in history?

LOL. Uh. Ok.

Sure, that is much better than the multiple historic, positive accomplishments of Biden so far, which is still racking up record job and wage gains, no discernible "recession" anyone can find or even artificially induce yet, saved millions of American lives and oh by the way are also cutting Trump's deficits by hundreds of billions annually.

All in a time frame when by now Reagan's accomplishments had plunged us into a whopping ten consecutive months of 10%+ Unemployment Rates in what was then the deepest economic decline since The Great Repub Depression, GW Bush had already delivered his first Recession, ignored his critical August PDB to usher in 9/11 and then lie us into at least three quagmire, economy-crippling wars and Trump's $2. 5 Trillion turd was producing a million fewer jobs with it than without it and he had just laid the CDC defunding and staff elimination groundwork for producing his fabulously positive Trump's Pandemic.

Good choices.

I've got some blank participation certificates for sale if anybody wants them. Cheap.

Tiny12:

[QUOTE]Wrong. First, there's nothing "lingering" about 7. 7% YoY CPI inflation. Secondly, as I said previously, through the latest quarter for which data is available, the annual increase in corporate profits, 7.7%, was less than the YoY CPI inflation, 9.1%. Furthermore, the annual increase in corporate profits was only 0.95% of GDP.[/QUOTE]"lingering" only means lasting for a long time or slow to end. It has nothing to do with being smaller.

Those corporate profits, and I am sure they would be pleased to capture 0. 95% of total USA GDP most years, do not apply to every corporation because not every corporation is price gouging. But obviously the gas and oil companies are price gouging as are some drug manufactureres, as addressed in Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. Products for which most consumers of them have no competitive option.

And those corporate profits are garnered from fewer unit sales due to inhibited supply-chain flow, right?

Welcome to price gouging.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2762762]Hey, Edwin Edwards, a populist Democrat, did the same thing in Louisiana.

I'd throw out a quote of Edwards from 1983 that's remarkably similar to Trump's "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible." But Edwards' statement may violate forum policies.[/QUOTE]I remember the quote you're referencing. About Edwards saying that the only way he could lose a particular election was to get caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. That, of course, is similar to Donnie the Dumbass but not the same. And Edwards, as I recall, never did run for President.

A more telling reference was given by an Edwards voter. "he's crooked but he's an honest crook."

And that, right there, is the difference between Edwards and Donnie the Dumbass. Edwards might have been an honest crook but everybody knows that Donnie the Dumbass was a dishonest crook. Charging the Secret Service rack rates to stay at his properties was BS and you know it. Donnie the Dumbass was in it for one thing, and one thing only. [B]himself[/B]. I pity the poor SS agents who will have to have adjoining cells in prison with Donnie the Dumbass in order to protect him.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2762855]Tiny12:

"lingering" only means lasting for a long time or slow to end. It has nothing to do with being smaller.

Those corporate profits, and I am sure they would be pleased to capture 0. 95% of total USA GDP most years, do not apply to every corporation because not every corporation is price gouging. But obviously the gas and oil companies are price gouging as are some drug manufactureres, as addressed in Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. Products for which most consumers of them have no competitive option.

And those corporate profits are garnered from fewer unit sales due to inhibited supply-chain flow, right?

Welcome to price gouging.[/QUOTE]Apparently you don't understand the math. If corporate profits increased by less than 1% of GDP over the most recent year for which data is available, and if corporate profits increased less than the inflation rate, you can't attribute an outsize portion of the 9.1% increase in CPI over the same period to outsized profits. Now you could poke a hole in this argument if you were looking at an earlier period in time, say 6/30/2020 to 6/30/2021, but since you're making a statement about "lingering" (meaning current) inflation, you're just plain wrong.

We've already discussed this:

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2761481]....Problems with logistics, lockdowns, and in general a fall off in supply happened at the same time $5 trillion+ in COVID stimulus, over 25% of GDP, was pumped into the system.

What's the other half of the explanation? You had a big increase in demand, because people had lots of free money, at the same time you had a shortage of goods. In other words, demand was greater than supply. Businesses sitting on lower cost inventory jacked up their prices. When something like this happens, businesses realize outsized profits until something changes. Most often it's an increase in competition and capacity, but perhaps in this case a rejiggering of the supply chain (additional supply) will bring prices and profit margins down. At some point many businesses will lose money. The weak get knocked out of business, capacity is shuttered. Then it starts all over again. It's called the business cycle.

The Progressive shills believe the proper reaction to the business cycle is to impose price controls or windfall profits taxes on corporations, even though those have been tried and they only fuck things up worse.

There are things the Biden administration and the Democrats, who control Congress, could do to counteract this. One example is quit threatening to shut down the oil and gas producers, so that they're afraid to invest in increasing production. Another is to end the Trump tariffs. And a third is to cut out the corporate welfare. I don't know exactly what's in the Infrastructure legislation, the semiconductor bill, and the green legislation (that is, the inflation reduction act). But undoubtedly lots of pork that benefits businesses. The tariffs and the corporate welfare are crony capitalism, which will drive up corporate profits at the expense of the consumer. And don't let your prejudices get the best of you. The Democrats are just as bad or worse than the Republicans at this. Why do you think it's the Democrats now who hang out at country clubs, while the hard working men and women on the factory floors are Republicans?[/QUOTE]Are you one of those Country Club Democrats? You sure haven't complained how your stock funds have performed during the Biden administration. I'm not sure you understand, but the most important determinant of the value of your stocks and the dividends they pay is corporate earnings. You're as big a beneficiary of presumed price gouging as anyone on here.

As to the oil and gas companies, looking at the S&P Oil & Gas Production Select Industry Index, the average return on equity over the last decade was negative. Now they're making money and the progressive Democrats want to kneecap them with a windfall profits tax, and ban fracking, and basically put them out of business. And then Biden and others complain the oil companies aren't investing in production growth. No wonder.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2762849]Your answer:

You do know that those bits of legislation passed by Reagan, Bush2 and Trump in their first year or so added huge numbers to the deficit ($2. 5 Trillion in Trump's case), produced zero positive results vs negative results and did zero to lesson but plenty to exacerbate the Great Repub Crashes, Great Repub Recessions and Great Repub Massive Jobs Losses that followed, right?

And only ONE each? And that one, at best, mostly produced nothing in exchange for the huge amounts they added to the deficit while, at worst, contributed to the three worst Great Repub Crashes, Great Repub Recessions and Great Repub Massive Job Losses in history?

LOL. Uh. Ok.

Sure, that is much better than the multiple historic, positive accomplishments of Biden so far, which is still racking up record job and wage gains, no discernible "recession" anyone can find or even artificially induce yet, saved millions of American lives and oh by the way are also cutting Trump's deficits by hundreds of billions annually.

All in a time frame when by now Reagan's accomplishments had plunged us into a whopping ten consecutive months of 10%+ Unemployment Rates in what was then the deepest economic decline since The Great Repub Depression, GW Bush had already delivered his first Recession, ignored his critical August PDB to usher in 9/11 and then lie us into at least three quagmire, economy-crippling wars and Trump's $2. 5 Trillion turd was producing a million fewer jobs with it than without it and he had just laid the CDC defunding and staff elimination groundwork for producing his fabulously positive Trump's Pandemic.

Good choices.

I've got some blank participation certificates for sale if anybody wants them. Cheap.[/QUOTE]Say you're a small business owner. Some mafioso comes to you and offers you protection in return for 50% of the profits from your business. By protection, he means he won't get his thugs to kneecap you if you don't pay up. Then another mafioso takes over. He comes to you and offers protection for 30%, and he's also going to get rid of the 80,000 enforcers the previous guy was going to hire to implement more creative ways of extorting money from you and torturing and maiming you. Which are you going to prefer? That's why I "revere" (using your word) tax cut bills. Now you, and anybody who's figured a way to suck more out of the federal government than he pays in, may not feel the same way.

I don't like big deficits, and that's why I give so much credit to Clinton and a Republican Congress for actually running budget surpluses. I would "revere" any bills that would lower federal spending and make our federal government smaller and more efficient. But those are few and far between.

We've covered the rest of this and I'm too lazy to look it up, like I did in my last post. Your $2.5 trillion figure assumes the TCJA tax cuts will be extended. CBO and JCT estimated the figure would be around $1.5 trillion. But that was before corporate tax revenues rose more than expected, so that now they're higher than they were projected to be if the TCJA had never been implemented. The total "lost" revenues would have totaled less than a trillion if Democrats had seen fit to eliminate the cuts. But they didn't. Anyone who's not an idiot, and I include Joe Biden in the "not an idiot" category, realized the federal corporate tax rate was far too high before the TCJA. Biden "only" wanted to jack it back up to 28%, less than the 35% it was at before the TCJA. The decrease in the corporate rate and changes to eliminate corporate tax loopholes had positive effects. Corporations brought lots of money back to the USA, and became more competitive since they no longer had to pay at the highest rate in the developed world. I believe part of the reason for low unemployment and the increase in median household income pre-COVID was because of the drop in the corporate rate, and Trump's deregulation, which increased the incentive to do business and invest in America.

Your beliefs about the recession and unemployment during Reagan's term are just more of your attempt to explain economic history solely based on the party of the president and in a way that reflects favorably on Democrats. The recession resulted from Volcker raising rates during the Carter Administration and maintaining them into Reagan's administration.

Similarly, you're still blaming a global pandemic on Trump and Republicans. And entirely crediting Biden and Democrats for growth in the economy and jobs that resulted from a rebound in the economy after the deep, pandemic-induced recession.

As to Bush's wars, I agree. I didn't vote for him (or Trump), and thought from the outset the invasion of Iraq was a big mistake.

With his announcement, Donnie [b]"the Devil"[/b] J. Dummkopf, says that he's running again for POTUS. So it looks like this time the Repubs, will undoubtedly, have to do the heavy lifting themselves, to clean house and rid themselves of the Orange Menace.

Question is, can the ballsy and plucky, upstart from Florida defeat the bloviating, bombastic, evil grifter from Mar-O-Largo? Or can Agent Orange, once again rally his insurrectionist lunatic fringe base and hold onto his cult following to thwart the [i]"Nancy Sinatra, white wellington-boots wearing"[/i] newcomer?

No doubt, much to the chagrin of the Repubs (most of whom, stayed away from the announcement), the Dems couldn't have wished for a better outcome to a brighter victory path for the 2024 elections, as an eminent Civil War, looms large in the Repub caucus.

[i]So do the GOP/Repubs, have the guts to fight Trump, or let him self-destruct? [/i] Either way we'll get to see the fortitude of their moral conviction OR lack thereof.

[i]Is the Repub 2024 campaign, done before it even begins, with Agent Orange at the helm?[/i] Déjà Vu anyone?

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2762762]Hey, Edwin Edwards, a populist Democrat, did the same thing in Louisiana.

I'd throw out a quote of Edwards from 1983 that's remarkably similar to Trump's "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible." But Edwards' statement may violate forum policies.[/QUOTE]I've never heard of Edwards, so I read a little about him. I must say his jokes are actually funny, and I liked them much better than Trump's "Fifth Ave".

[URL]https://www.al.com/opinion/2021/07/from-edwin-edwards-to-donald-trump-voters-are-sometimes-willingly-blind.html[/URL]

Good point, though.

Still, a "democratic Trump" would be flatly rejected by his own party. You're comparing a head of a small state in the 20th century to a nationwide figure who has achieved a cult status at the age of the internet when almost any claim can be checked and verified in a matter of seconds.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2762995]Say you're a small business owner. Some mafioso comes to you and offers you protection in return for 50% of the profits from your business. By protection, he means he won't get his thugs to kneecap you if you don't pay up. Then another mafioso takes over. He comes to you and offers protection for 30%, and he's also going to get rid of the 80,000 enforcers the previous guy was going to hire to implement more creative ways of extorting money from you and torturing and maiming you. Which are you going to prefer? That's why I "revere" (using your word) tax cut bills. Now you, and anybody who's figured a way to suck more out of the federal government than he pays in, may not feel the same way.

I don't like big deficits, and that's why I give so much credit to Clinton and a Republican Congress for actually running budget surpluses. I would "revere" any bills that would lower federal spending and make our federal government smaller and more efficient. But those are few and far between.

We've covered the rest of this and I'm too lazy to look it up, like I did in my last post. Your $2.5 trillion figure assumes the TCJA tax cuts will be extended. CBO and JCT estimated the figure would be around $1.5 trillion. But that was before corporate tax revenues rose more than expected, so that now they're higher than they were projected to be if the TCJA had never been implemented. The total "lost" revenues would have totaled less than a trillion if Democrats had seen fit to eliminate the cuts. But they didn't. Anyone who's not an idiot, and I include Joe Biden in the "not an idiot" category, realized the federal corporate tax rate was far too high before the TCJA. Biden "only" wanted to jack it back up to 28%, less than the 35% it was at before the TCJA. The decrease in the corporate rate and changes to eliminate corporate tax loopholes had positive effects. Corporations brought lots of money back to the USA, and became more competitive since they no longer had to pay at the highest rate in the developed world. I believe part of the reason for low unemployment and the increase in median household income pre-COVID was because of the drop in the corporate rate, and Trump's deregulation, which increased the incentive to do business and invest in America.

Your beliefs about the recession and unemployment during Reagan's term are just more of your attempt to explain economic history solely based on the party of the president and in a way that reflects favorably on Democrats. The recession resulted from Volcker raising rates during the Carter Administration and maintaining them into Reagan's administration.

Similarly, you're still blaming a global pandemic on Trump and Republicans. And entirely crediting Biden and Democrats for growth in the economy and jobs that resulted from a rebound in the economy after the deep, pandemic-induced recession.

As to Bush's wars, I agree. I didn't vote for him (or Trump), and thought from the outset the invasion of Iraq was a big mistake.[/QUOTE]As a small business owner, which I am, I would never vote for a Repub on any ballot ever again, only for Dems. Period. Which I started doing before Reagan's first disastrous potus term was over anyway. Happily and successfully so.

No piddling marginal Repub tax cut or promise of one dangling over my head like a baby's crib mobile will distract me from the by now absolute inarguable knowledge that Repubs will fuck up the USA economy so dramatically in so many other ways that piddling tax cut will mean nothing and accomplish nothing by comparison.

Reagan can inherit a declining unemployment rate into the low 7% range on his day one after a one month peak of 7. 8% months earlier, after Carter and Volker's reversal and decline of inflation, month over month, which began almost a year before he took office, after one of the best average annual jobs creating presidencies of all time, when every boomer generation age 16 - 35 was entering the workforce, no wars, minor debt and deficits, yet still manage to produce the then worst economic downturn since the Great Repub Depression with his idiotic Repub Supply-Side / Trickle-Down tax and economic policies, fast-tracked into the system because he took a bullet from an idiot with a gun trying to impress a lesbian actress.

So much for that piddling tax cut disproportionately high for the top margins. Sorry, not good for my business.

Bush2 can give tax "refunds" back to Americans from the budget surpluses he inherited from Clinton and his 1993/1994 Dems with zero help from Clinton dick and ball-sniffing Gingrich, unless shutting down the government twice for no reason at all and for no gain for Repubs counts as "help", but then ignore and blunder us into the attack on 9/11, lie us into multiple quagmire wars and preside over a Treasury Department who, apparently doing the usual Repub bidding, ignore and do nothing about blatantly obvious Liar Loans that, sure enough, Crashed the USA Economy, produced another Great Repub Recession and Wiped Out Millions Upon Millions of Jobs.

So much for that piddling tax cut. Sorry, not good for my business.

Trump can give disproportionately high long term tax cuts for top margins and corporations, which, at best produced a million fewer jobs with them than without them, did not even add a single percentage point to annual GDP growth and skyrocketed his deficits by trillions, then produce Trump's Pandemic, which, again sure enough, REQUIRED that those idiot tax cuts be renewed and continued during the inevitable Repub economic disaster that followed:

[B]Bob Woodward Was Stunned By What Trump Told Young Son Barron About Coronavirus[/B]

[URL]https://news.yahoo.com/bob-woodward-stunned-trump-told-091902598.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]Talking to Woodward on March 19, 2020, Trump said Barron, then 13, asked what was going on and he answered: I said, it came out of China, Barron. Pure and simple. It came out of China. And it shouldve been stopped. And to be honest with you, Barron, [b]they shouldve let it be known it was a problem two months earlier ... the world wouldnt have a problem. We could have stopped it easily.[/b][/QUOTE][B]Trump says China should have told us about coronavirus. He removed the official meant to do that.
A US epidemiologist was embedded with the Chinese CDC. The Trump administration discontinued the position.[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2020/3/23/21190713/coronavirus-trump-china-cdc-embed-quick[/URL]

[QUOTE]With the administration planning to discontinue the role, [b]the embed return to the US about five months before China began to see its first Covid-19 cases. Under normal circumstances, the embed likely would have passed information about the novel virus to US officials. Instead, Chinese officials were able for weeks to conceal the virus and the threat it posed, leading to a delay in the worlds response to what was then a matter of great concern and is now a pandemic.[/b][/QUOTE]So much for those piddling tax cuts. Sorry, not good for my business.

BTW, interesting that Mainstream Media pundit and author Bob Woodward sat on that damning audio recording of Trump admitting that it was his screw up FIVE MONTHS before the first coronavirus cases emerged in China when even numbskull Trump himself knew all we needed was a TWO MONTH heads up to avoid the whole damn Pandemic thing. Yep, he had the smoking gun, the bullet, the finger prints, the body and the confession by the mass-murderer and global economy and Supply-Chain destroyer himself as early as March 2020. Yet he sat on it all through the 2020 elections and the 2022 elections. No surprise there.

Also, I did not say the lingering Trump's Pandemic-created Inflation included an "outsize" portion of price gouging. I said it was a "sizable" portion of it. And for prescription drug users, those requiring insulin and anyone who buys gas, it is a "sizable" portion of it.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2763033]With his announcement, Donnie [b]"the Devil"[/b] J. Dummkopf, says that he's running again for POTUS. So it looks like this time the Repubs, will undoubtedly, have to do the heavy lifting themselves, to clean house and rid themselves of the Orange Menace.

Question is, can the ballsy and plucky, upstart from Florida defeat the bloviating, bombastic, evil grifter from Mar-O-Largo? Or can Agent Orange, once again rally his insurrectionist lunatic fringe base and hold onto his cult following to thwart the [i]"Nancy Sinatra, white wellington-boots wearing"[/i] newcomer?

No doubt, much to the chagrin of the Repubs (most of whom, stayed away from the announcement), the Dems couldn't have wished for a better outcome to a brighter victory path for the 2024 elections, as an eminent Civil War, looms large in the Repub caucus.

[i]So do the GOP/Repubs, have the guts to fight Trump, or let him self-destruct? [/i] Either way we'll get to see the fortitude of their moral conviction OR lack thereof.

[i]Is the Repub 2024 campaign, done before it even begins, with Agent Orange at the helm?[/i] Dj Vu anyone?[/QUOTE]The major mistake takeaway for Repubs is already being articulated by their iconic Repub Party creation and Repub Party leader, Trump. Notice how delighted he is that "We fired Nancy"? More or less the same as "Gridlock has been achieved" in getting it wrong. The only thing they think they got in their non existent Red Tsunami, Red Wave, Red Ripple, Red Trickle, Red Sprinkle or Red Tinkle.

Repubs did not really "win" the House Majority.

They did not win the House on their chosen issues; Trump's Pandemic Inflation, mythical CRT being taught in schools, utterly immaterial "wokeness", high crime rates in Red States, illegal crossings since Trump decimated the legal immigration system on his way out, etc.

They did not win the House because the electorate hated Biden or Nancy.

They didn't even win the House because they got more Repub votes or converted Dem voters into Repub voters.

No, this is why Repubs will now have a tiny, teeny Trump weeny Majority in the House:

[B]Redistricting helps Republicans in close fight for House control.
Voters went to the polls in districts that favored Republicans less than they did a decade ago, but still favored the GOP overall, experts say[/B]

[URL]https://rollcall.com/2022/11/15/redistricting-helps-republicans-in-close-fight-for-house-control/[/URL]

[QUOTE]More than a dozen races were still not called Monday, but it appeared Republicans were closing in on the 218 seats needed to take control of the chamber from Democrats a result that means a change in just a few seats would make the difference.

In such an outcome, advantages in redistricting almost certainly contributed, said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, who focuses on elections.

Its almost certain the way the maps were drawn, and the skews that exist in the maps, will play an outsize role, Li said. If Republicans win a majority there will almost certainly be a majority because of redistricting.[/QUOTE]See, what they did was carve out a few "new" Repub districts by drawing lines around as many Repubs as possible in previously Dem districts, lump the Dems together in fewer districts and Voila! They rigged the already rigged Gerrymandering Redistricting bit to add a few more Repub districts that did not exist before.

That being the case, no, they do not have a mandate to spend the next two years sniffing around Hunter Biden's dick and balls, trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, The Infrastructure Bill, The Inflation Reduction Act, the Chips Act, the right to have Sex For Pleasure everywhere in the country, etc, or to ensure we get Trump or Trump Without The Flash DeSantis for a so-called potus in 2025.

So it's the 2024 Repub Election match-up we've all been waiting for, a LOSER election denier ex-Pres vs. the raising NEW-STAR Governor.

Both are sure to be the "top-dogs", battling it out and vying for the Repub head honcho position. Which undoubtedly, will ultimately prove, to be a supremely contentious and an an epic and colossal knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred fight.

• In this red corner, weighing-in with 3x consecutive election loser, is fmr. Pres Donnie [b]"the Devil, Democracy Destroyer and Denier of Elections"[/b] J. Dummkopf and;

• In this red corner, weighing-in with 4x consecutive election winner, is re-elected Gov. Ronald [b]"DeSanctimonious",'fat,' 'phony,' and 'whiny'[/b] DeSantis,

Ladies and Gentlemen, let's get ready to RUMBLE!!!.....(with popcorn, snacks and copious amounts of alcoholic beverages at the ready!!!).....[b]Now FIGHT!!![/b]

I remember having a discussion here about the squeeze on the middle class, and various Dem defenders refusing to accept it. Here is the proof:

[URL]https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58533[/URL]

% share of wealth in USA. | 1989. | 2019.

Top 1%. | 27%. | 34%.

Top 10%. | 62%. | 72%.

Bottom 50%. | 4%. | 2%.

The rest (people in range 11th-49th wealtheist). | 34%. | 26%.

Even the lower portion of the top has become worse off as more and more money is pushed upwards.

The obcene inequality is obvious. The notion that 'taxing the rich would not solve' would not solve poverty is a disgusting lie.

Forget about Replacement theory against whites, you guys need to start acting to save your once-priveleged middle class white arses. See you soon in a Bangladeshi call centre.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2763054]The major mistake takeaway for Repubs is already being articulated by their iconic Repub Party creation and Repub Party leader, Trump. Notice how delighted he is that "We fired Nancy"? More or less the same as "Gridlock has been achieved" in getting it wrong. The only thing they think they got in their non existent Red Tsunami, Red Wave, Red Ripple, Red Trickle, Red Sprinkle or Red Tinkle.

Repubs did not really "win" the House Majority.

They did not win the House on their chosen issues; Trump's Pandemic Inflation, mythical CRT being taught in schools, utterly immaterial "wokeness", high crime rates in Red States, illegal crossings since Trump decimated the legal immigration system on his way out, etc.

They did not win the House because the electorate hated Biden or Nancy.

They didn't even win the House because they got more Repub votes or converted Dem voters into Repub voters..[/QUOTE]While Repubs don't have a mandate to investigate diddly or repeal anything, we need to remember that they are Repubs. And therefore, by definition, they are dumber-than-dogshit. Since they don't have any policies (other than 'owning the libs' and sabotaging every Dem proposal) all they can do is investigate.

They campaigned about the things that voters lied to them about. Most voters (especially Dem voters) know that inflation is temporary and would be with us regardless of who is in the WH. Most voters (especially Dem voters) know that "crime" is not Dem-only thing. Most voters (especially Dem voters) know that the US immigration policy needs work and the both parties have "kicked the can down the road" for far too long. The only people who think otherwise are Repubs who, as I said earlier, are dumber-then-dogshit.

What most voters cared about was that Democracy was under attack with Donnie the Dumbass at the helm. What most voters cared about was that people's rights were under attack with Repubs at the helm. And they voted to deny the dumber-than-dogshit Repubs the "red wave" (60+ House seat pickup and a filibuster-proof Senate majority) they had a wet dream about.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2763169]I remember having a discussion here about the squeeze on the middle class, and various Dem defenders refusing to accept it. Here is the proof:

[URL]https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58533[/URL]

% share of wealth in USA. | 1989. | 2019.

Top 1%. | 27%. | 34%.

Top 10%. | 62%. | 72%.

Bottom 50%. | 4%. | 2%.

The rest (people in range 11th-49th wealtheist). | 34%. | 26%.

Even the lower portion of the top has become worse off as more and more money is pushed upwards.

The obcene inequality is obvious. The notion that 'taxing the rich would not solve' would not solve poverty is a disgusting lie.

Forget about Replacement theory against whites, you guys need to start acting to save your once-priveleged middle class white arses. See you soon in a Bangladeshi call centre.[/QUOTE]I don't accept there's a squeeze on the middle class in the USA. Median disposable income per person in the USA is the highest in the OECD:

[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income[/URL]

If you don't understand what "median" means let me know and I'll explain. It represents the middle of the middle class.

I do not believe the middle class in any of the countries where I've worked and traveled is better off than the middle class in the USA.

You have identified two very significant problems. The first is that the poor in America are not as well off as some European countries. Average income per person adjusted for purchasing power among the bottom 50% probably is lower in the USA than in those countries. While the middle class here is doing fine, the average is brought down by the poor.

I believe more aid should flow to the poor, especially poor children. Better education, preparing kids in ways that will enable them to hold down good jobs, is another part of the solution. This is doable. We're doing it in my community. Higher minimum wages, set by localities at appropriate levels, is another part of the solution.

The second is that many Americans spend money as fast as it comes in and don't save. And health care costs are out the gazoo. As a result, many Americans have little to no savings and their share of the national wealth is close to zero. That's the main reason for the numbers in your table. This could be remedied by Tiny's Plan to Make All Americans Rich, which I have explained previously.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2754249]You and I have been thrifty and wise enough to save and invest. We could stop working and be fine. But many Americans spend all their money just as fast as it comes in. What I'm proposing is like a huge combination IRA and HSA, with the ability to take out money without penalty for a downpayment on a house or education. And restrictions so the money must be logically invested by reputable mangers, like the Australian super funds. You'd have to transition to this over time to avoid having it induce a recession. And yes, you're right, perhaps the majority of Americans, more so Republicans, wouldn't go for something like this.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2753839]....If the USA had a system like Singapore's, employees and employers combined would have to put aside 37% of wages, at least until the age of 55. That along with a safety net and major medical insurance provided by government pays for retirement, medical expenses, and if the beneficiary chooses, college and a downpayment on a home. [/QUOTE]Also, please note that technology and globalization are what have caused the wealth of the top 1% and top 10% to grow so much faster than the bottom 50%. It's not changes in the tax system. If you want to solve the problem you need a "bottom up" solution, looking at what can be done for those who are less well off, instead of stealing from the better off. Countries that have tried the later approach, like France and socialist economies, have mostly figured that out. You could take every after tax dollar made by every taxpayer who makes over $500,000 a year, which would be the top 1.2% of the population, and that would only pay for 50% of American health care costs.

What's your cure? It would probably be worse than the disease. It undoubtedly involves taking capital from the capitalists, to make the public sector in the USA larger. More money goes into the hands of a federal government that flushes a good part of it down the toilet and spends much of the rest on welfare for corporations and the better off. Less stays in the hands of individuals, and with businesses that are the engine of growth and jobs.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2763035]I've never heard of Edwards, so I read a little about him. I must say his jokes are actually funny, and I liked them much better than Trump's "Fifth Ave".

[URL]https://www.al.com/opinion/2021/07/from-edwin-edwards-to-donald-trump-voters-are-sometimes-willingly-blind.html[/URL]

Good point, though.

Still, a "democratic Trump" would be flatly rejected by his own party. You're comparing a head of a small state in the 20th century to a nationwide figure who has achieved a cult status at the age of the internet when almost any claim can be checked and verified in a matter of seconds.[/QUOTE]I'm impressed by your initiative Xpartan! I guess you've figured out the quote I was comparing to Trump's "Fifth Avenue" quip. And yeah, it's a lot funnier than what Trump said.

I believe some people (not you or me) would vote for people like Edwards or Trump for the entertainment value. You have to admit politics was a lot more entertaining when Trump was president.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2763050]As a small business owner, which I am, I would never vote for a Repub on any ballot ever again, only for Dems. Period. Which I started doing before Reagan's first disastrous potus term was over anyway. Happily and successfully so.

No piddling marginal Repub tax cut or promise of one dangling over my head like a baby's crib mobile will distract me from the by now absolute inarguable knowledge that Repubs will fuck up the USA economy so dramatically in so many other ways that piddling tax cut will mean nothing and accomplish nothing by comparison.[/QUOTE]Stockholm Syndrome

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2763274]I don't accept there's a squeeze on the middle class in the USA. Median disposable income per person in the USA is the highest in the OECD.

The second is that many Americans spend money as fast as it comes in and don't save. And health care costs are out the gazoo. As a result, many Americans have little to no savings and their share of the national wealth is close to zero.

What's your cure? [/QUOTE]A measurement of median income is totally irrelevant to the question of whether there is a squeeze or not. A squeeze means that the situation has got worse, therefore how can a measurement at one time be used to test for this? Obviously, you need 2 dates, to chk if the position has got better or worse. And clearly it has got worse. You say that USA median disp income is highest in OECD. Apart from that being irrelevant (as just explained) - after WW2 that stat was much more weighted in the USA favour, but all that advantage has now been lost. USA, the land of opportunity, is no more. All the enormous advantages that the USA had from only fighting 2 halves of 2 world wars, all the geologic and geographic adavantages, its population and land advantages, have been frittered away. So yeah, clearly there is a squeeze.

Right. I accept your point that most USAns don't save. But that's bcos they earn so litle and spend so miuch on necesities that they don't have a chance to save.

My cure would be to -.
- nationalise all primary industries (extraction / mining / waterways / fishieries etc), all national services (health / education / inurance / banks / post / rail / road / communications), all industries where competition is not possible (gas / electric / water etc). We could debate the stock exchange and food.
- re-impose 90% top tier tax.
- withdraw US troops from its 1000+ foriegn military bases.
- try to lead the world by example, not at gun point.

That would be a good start.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2763319]A measurement of median income is totally irrelevant to the question of whether there is a squeeze or not. A squeeze means that the situation has got worse, therefore how can a measurement at one time be used to test for this? Obviously, you need 2 dates, to chk if the position has got better or worse. And clearly it has got worse. You say that USA median disp income is highest in OECD. Apart from that being irrelevant (as just explained) - after WW2 that stat was much more weighted in the USA favour, but all that advantage has now been lost. USA, the land of opportunity, is no more. All the enormous advantages that the USA had from only fighting 2 halves of 2 world wars, all the geologic and geographic adavantages, its population and land advantages, have been frittered away. So yeah, clearly there is a squeeze.

Right. I accept your point that most USAns don't save. But that's bcos they earn so litle and spend so miuch on necesities that they don't have a chance to save.

My cure would be to -.
- nationalise all primary industries (extraction / mining / waterways / fishieries etc), all national services (health / education / inurance / banks / post / rail / road / communications), all industries where competition is not possible (gas / electric / water etc). We could debate the stock exchange and food.
- re-impose 90% top tier tax.
- withdraw US troops from its 1000+ foriegn military bases.
- try to lead the world by example, not at gun point.

That would be a good start.[/QUOTE]Given that USA'ers have the highest median disposable income, adjusted for purchasing power, in the OECD, I don't see how you can say they don't have enough income to save. I've heard that from friends a lot, when I criticize them for charging to credit cards. "You just don't understand. I just don't have enough money. " Then he goes out and buys a new hunting rifle and continues dropping beaucoup coin on beer and women.

You're preaching to the choir when you propose cutting military expenditures and leading the world by example instead of gunpoint. The rest of your post however is a recipe for a 40%+ drop in GDP per capita. Maybe a lot more than 40%. That's about how much lower French GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power, is compared to the USA, and what you're proposing is much more radical than anything France ever implemented. It would make most Americans poorer. It could also result in Americans going hungry, depending on the outcome of our debate about food. Agricultural collectives in socialist countries and ejidos in Mexico don't have the best record. I guess the government elites who administer the socialist system would prosper though.

I don't buy your theory that America has God given advantages that should cause it to be more prosperous than most other places. World War II was over 77 years ago. WWI was over 100 years ago. And those perceived advantages may, like the Dutch disease, actually be disadvantages. Look at Singapore. It's wealthier than we are, has none of the resources, and its government implemented what I described below.

I however do award you a participation TROPHY (not some flimsy certificate like Tooms) for not only observing real problems we have in America, but also proposing solutions, even though the solutions are really, really bad.

Trump 2024! MAGA.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2762928]I remember the quote you're referencing. About Edwards saying that the only way he could lose a particular election was to get caught *************************. That, of course, is similar to Donnie the Dumbass but not the same. And Edwards, as I recall, never did run for President.

A more telling reference was given by an Edwards voter. "he's crooked but he's an honest crook."

And that, right there, is the difference between Edwards and Donnie the Dumbass. Edwards might have been an honest crook but everybody knows that Donnie the Dumbass was a dishonest crook. Charging the Secret Service rack rates to stay at his properties was BS and you know it. Donnie the Dumbass was in it for one thing, and one thing only. [B]himself[/B]. I pity the poor SS agents who will have to have adjoining cells in prison with Donnie the Dumbass in order to protect him.[/QUOTE]If you were to put that to a vote of historians, they'd probably say Edwards was the more corrupt of the two. But Trump must have lied more. And his post election antics after November, 2020 were in a league of their own.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2763328]Given that USA'ers have the highest median disposable income, adjusted for purchasing power, in the OECD
The rest of your post however is a recipe for a 40%+ drop in GDP per capita. Maybe a lot more than 40%. That's about how much lower French GDP per capita.
[/QUOTE]Well TBH I don't accept that USA has highest median disp income. I had this debate w someone else here. The USA is used as the benchmark, and all other countries stats are adjusted to fit w USA, not the other way round. So therefore the outrageous USA capitalist costs in healthcare and other basics, are not properly accounted for. Furthermore, I don't believe the USA record stats for all its people. No doubt great swathes of it s poor are excluded bcos they are non-people.

A drop is 40% GDP. Well that's a guess, and your entitled to it. I don't think comparisons to Singapore and France are worth much. Both countirres are very different to USA and have their unique advantages and disadvantages. I would say USA has suffered much more than 40% GDP loss by implementing neo-con and neo-lib policies for the 35 years. The golden age of USA economy was more a time of socialist polciies. Thats what set the economy alight. But that is my guess too.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2763357]Well TBH I don't accept that USA has highest median disp income. I had this debate w someone else here. The USA is used as the benchmark, and all other countries stats are adjusted to fit w USA, not the other way round. So therefore the outrageous USA capitalist costs in healthcare and other basics, are not properly accounted for. Furthermore, I don't believe the USA record stats for all its people. No doubt great swathes of it s poor are excluded bcos they are non-people.[/QUOTE]You bring up an interesting point, about health care and other basic costs. The tables here should take that into account, for OECD countries.

[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income[/URL]

Please note that "Disposable income is income available to households such as wages and salaries, income from self-employment and unincorporated enterprises, income from pensions and other social benefits, and income from financial investments (less any payments of tax, social insurance contributions and interest on financial liabilities). [B]This indicator also takes account of social transfers in kind 'such as health or education provided for free or at reduced prices by governments and not-for-profit organisations'[/B]. The data shown below is published by the OECD and is presented in purchasing power parity (PPP) in order to adjust for price differences between countries."

Also please note that the USA is first in the tables. With regard to your critique, health care costs are the biggie, and they are way out of control in the USA. Given the OECD's methodology, and given that health care costs in the USA are largely covered by employers and government, I still believe the USA deserves the #1 spot. However, admittedly, if any industry in the USA deserves to be socialized, it would be health care. Costs are out of control, and outcomes are poor.

Well, while we strongly disagree on this, we're certainly on the same page when it comes to neoconservatism.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2763278]Stockholm Syndrome[/QUOTE]Dog Sweaters.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2763403]The tables here should take that into account, for OECD countries.
]This indicator also takes account of social transfers in kind 'such as health or education provided for free or at reduced prices by governments and not-for-profit organisations'[
[/QUOTE]But it doesn't. Do you know why? It's bcos the stats try to equalise the incomes and outgoings by levelling them to the USA. So take Germany for example. They take their income then add on a cost value for education and a value for healthcare bcos there are free elements in Germany. So they add it to the income of Germany so that it is 'comparable' to the USA. So you can see that no adjustment is made to USa for their crazy high costs. If they had equalised to Germany instead of to USA, the outcome would be different.

Plus USA has millions of people that are simply omitted from the stats bcos they are the invisibles. This number of invisibles is far far higher than any other developed country, and caused by their imperialist international policies. So again, the position in USA has artifically inflated. We all know that's how the government does it in the USA. If they don't like the likely outcome, they just exclude people. As they do w the voting system too.

Finally China gets it, 2 years too late, but faster at least than the USA:

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JivH42qkGwM[/URL]

Targetted protection measures for the vulnerable.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2763421]Dog Sweaters.[/QUOTE]Edible Panties.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2763521]But it doesn't. Do you know why? It's bcos the stats try to equalise the incomes and outgoings by levelling them to the USA. So take Germany for example. They take their income then add on a cost value for education and a value for healthcare bcos there are free elements in Germany. So they add it to the income of Germany so that it is 'comparable' to the USA. So you can see that no adjustment is made to USa for their crazy high costs. If they had equalised to Germany instead of to USA, the outcome would be different.

Plus USA has millions of people that are simply omitted from the stats bcos they are the invisibles. This number of invisibles is far far higher than any other developed country, and caused by their imperialist international policies. So again, the position in USA has artifically inflated. We all know that's how the government does it in the USA. If they don't like the likely outcome, they just exclude people. As they do w the voting system too.[/QUOTE]You could be right on your two main points above. I'm not seeing it from Googling though. The census bureau believes its numbers are pretty accurate and include undocumented (illegal) immigrants. Actually this is something the Democratic Party stays on top of, as it believes undercounting undocumented workers would disadvantage it when it's time to do Congressional redistricting.

Any links or magic words? Before "Glenn Greenwald" did the trick.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2763565]You could be right on your two main points above. The census bureau believes its numbers are pretty accurate and include undocumented (illegal) immigrants. Actually this is something the Democratic Party stays on top of, as it believes undercounting undocumented workers would disadvantage it when it's time to do Congressional redistricting.

Any links or magic words? Before "Glenn Greenwald" did the trick.[/QUOTE]No magic journalists this time unfortunately. But the OECD explains that the measurement is grossed up by FOC health and education costs (so that all countries are comparable to USA, I. E. Nothing is free):

[URL]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm[/URL]

As for the stats including the unpeople. That sounds like a logical impossiblity to me how can they expect the stats to include ungestered people?! Isn't that a non-sequitor? If they are invible, they clearly are not included.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2763659]No magic journalists this time unfortunately. But the OECD explains that the measurement is grossed up by FOC health and education costs (so that all countries are comparable to USA, I. E. Nothing is free):

[URL]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm[/URL]

As for the stats including the unpeople. That sounds like a logical impossiblity to me how can they expect the stats to include ungestered people?! Isn't that a non-sequitor? If they are invible, they clearly are not included.[/QUOTE]If undocumented people aren't included, then why have Repubs been lying all this time? Members of the Moron Brigade swear that there are 20 million to 30 million undocumented immigrants in the US. It seems a logical impossibility that they can count all of these undocumented immigrants, right?

I guess the Repubs have been lying all of this time because there are clearly no undocumented immigrants living in the US.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2763712]If undocumented people aren't included, then why have Repubs been lying all this time? [/QUOTE]I have no idea why or if. You would need to ask them that Q.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2763357]Well TBH I don't accept that USA has highest median disp income. I had this debate w someone else here. The USA is used as the benchmark, and all other countries stats are adjusted to fit w USA, not the other way round. So therefore the outrageous USA capitalist costs in healthcare and other basics, are not properly accounted for. Furthermore, I don't believe the USA record stats for all its people. No doubt great swathes of it s poor are excluded bcos they are non-people.

A drop is 40% GDP. Well that's a guess, and your entitled to it. I don't think comparisons to Singapore and France are worth much. Both countirres are very different to USA and have their unique advantages and disadvantages. I would say USA has suffered much more than 40% GDP loss by implementing neo-con and neo-lib policies for the 35 years. The golden age of USA economy was more a time of socialist polciies. Thats what set the economy alight. But that is my guess too.[/QUOTE]Why is English the defacto language for flight communications? Why not use French? Or German? Or Russian? Or Spanish? Especially Spanish since there are more Spanish-speakers than any other language other than Mandarin Chinese?

If France was the benchmark you talk about above, every other country in the world would say "Why not use US as the benchmark?" The same with Germany. Or Spain, etc. The USA is the third most populous country in the world behind China and India. That's why they're used.

Nice little interview w John Pilger one of the best journalsists of modern times, one of the last truth seekers.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9pEotvlW-s[/URL]

His book Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism That Changed the World. Was a real eye opener and one of the best media books I have read. It's a collection of his favourite pieces of hoeroic jounalism from around the world at key moments on modern history. Its not his writing, apart from the chapter intros. But reading it, just shows what we as members of the public, are up against when we seek the truth.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2763926]Why is English the defacto language for flight communications? Why not use French? Or German? Or Russian? Or Spanish? Especially Spanish since there are more Spanish-speakers than any other language other than Mandarin Chinese?

If France was the benchmark you talk about above, every other country in the world would say "Why not use US as the benchmark?" The same with Germany. Or Spain, etc. The USA is the third most populous country in the world behind China and India. That's why they're used.[/QUOTE]Unadjusted for purchasing power, the GDP of the USA is 60% higher than #2 China, which doesn't have a freely convertible currency. Also we've had the predominant reserve currency in the world, and the predominant currency used for international trade. And in terms of GDP per capita and personal income per capita adjusted for purchasing power, we're number 1 for any country with a population of greater than 10 million. Or at least I'll go on believing that's the case unless JustTK comes up with more convincing evidence.

So yes, why not use the US as the benchmark?

Now at some point this may change. After adjusting for purchasing power, China has the world's largest economy. The use of sanctions by the USA has some other nations anxious to hold their reserves and conduct trade in other currencies. But for now, and for the foreseeable future, for better or worse, the USA is the king of the hill.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2763926]Why is English the defacto language for flight communications?

If France was the benchmark you talk about above, every other country in the world would say "Why not use US as the benchmark?"\.[/QUOTE]What does that have to do w the price of eggs? You clearly missed my point. Again. This is a bad habit you have.

I was not complaining that USA was used as the benchmark. I was simply saying that it was used and that it influences the outcome of the stats.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2763981]we're number 1 for any country with a population of greater than 10 million. Or at least I'll go on believing that's the case unless JustTK comes up with more convincing evidence.
The use of sanctions by the USA has some other nations anxious to hold their reserves and conduct trade in other currencies. But for now, and for the foreseeable future, for better or worse, the USA is the king of the hill.[/QUOTE]Read John Pilger. :)

[QUOTE=JustTK;2763984]Read John Pilger.[/QUOTE]Right, Pilger. Pro-Trump, pro-Russia, anti-America, anti-Israel.

Sigh.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2763981]we're number 1 for any country with a population of greater than 10 million. Or at least I'll go on believing that's the case unless JustTK comes up with more convincing evidence.
So yes, why not use the US as the benchmark?
But for now, and for the foreseeable future, for better or worse, the USA is the king of the hill.[/QUOTE]Let me give you a hypothetical example to illustrate why the benchmark selection is important.

Lets say in USA avge income is USD 50.000, but that avge health costs is USD 20.000.
And in Germany avge income is USD 35.000, but that avge health costs provided by the state is USD 10.000.

So equalising to USA. USA is 50.000, Germany is 45.000 - so USA is nr 1.
But by equalising to Germany. USA is 30.000, Germany is 35.000 - so Germany is nr 1.

This is bcos by using USA as benchmark, its high health costs are ignored, whereas by using Germany as benchmark, the USA high health costs are accounted for.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2764112]Let me give you a hypothetical example to illustrate why the benchmark selection is important.

Lets say in USA avge income is USD 50.000, but that avge health costs is USD 20.000.
And in Germany avge income is USD 35.000, but that avge health costs provided by the state is USD 10.000.

So equalising to USA. USA is 50.000, Germany is 45.000 - so USA is nr 1.
But by equalising to Germany. USA is 30.000, Germany is 35.000 - so Germany is nr 1.

This is bcos by using USA as benchmark, its high health costs are ignored, whereas by using Germany as benchmark, the USA high health costs are accounted for.[/QUOTE]Sick Around the World is a Frontline / PBS documentary that investigates healthcare throughout the world of a few technically and industrially advanced countries. It is interesting and informative and the USA is definitely not the benchmark in Health Care. I watched it in a college class about ten years ago.

P.S: I'm not a youngster. I went back at age 54 and graduated at age of 60 from a Big Ten University while still working full time. Anyone really interested in healthcare will learn a lot and many will be surprised and disappointed in how the USA compares to the others.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2763982]What does that have to do w the price of eggs? You clearly missed my point. Again. This is a bad habit you have.

I was not complaining that USA was used as the benchmark. I was simply saying that it was used and that it influences the outcome of the stats.[/QUOTE]You are complaining that using the USA as a benchmark influences the statistics. Your opinion.

Your example, BTW, of Germany and the USA is bogus. Why? Because if the "value" of the healthcare in the US is $20 K, the same "value" for German healthcare is also $20 K. You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2764147]You are complaining that using the USA as a benchmark influences the statistics. Your opinion.

Your example, BTW, of Germany and the USA is bogus. Why? Because if the "value" of the healthcare in the US is $20 K, the same "value" for German healthcare is also $20 K. You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.[/QUOTE]I don't know if I should continue to communicate with you. I increasingly think you belong in the ignore category as Spartenbrain and Spiderbrain.

One more try. I DID NOT COMPLAIN. I merely stated that USA is used as the benchmark and that it influences the outcome.

My example is bogus, is it? For one it is a hypothetical as I stated in my prev post, I didn't claim any facts. Secondly you do not understand the implications behind the costs. The costs of healthcare in the USA IS NOT the same as the cost in Germany. It costs far more in the USA for the same healthcare.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2764147]You are complaining that using the USA as a benchmark influences the statistics. Your opinion.

Your example, BTW, of Germany and the USA is bogus. Why? Because if the "value" of the healthcare in the US is $20 K, the same "value" for German healthcare is also $20 K. You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.[/QUOTE]I think TK has got something there. Our healthcare system that favors only the very poor and the very rich is an atrocious embarrassment. No other industrial nation in the world denies its citizens universal care. It's just mind-blowing how successfully Republicans have trained their constituency to vote against their own basic interests.

Of course, his reasoning is uber simplified, because that German healthcare for example isn't made possible due to the lower average income, but higher average taxes. Still, there is no denial that our healthcare system is both the worst and most expensive in the civilized world.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2764112]Let me give you a hypothetical example to illustrate why the benchmark selection is important.

Lets say in USA avge income is USD 50.000, but that avge health costs is USD 20.000.
And in Germany avge income is USD 35.000, but that avge health costs provided by the state is USD 10.000.

So equalising to USA. USA is 50.000, Germany is 45.000 - so USA is nr 1.
But by equalising to Germany. USA is 30.000, Germany is 35.000 - so Germany is nr 1.

This is bcos by using USA as benchmark, its high health costs are ignored, whereas by using Germany as benchmark, the USA high health costs are accounted for.[/QUOTE]JustTK, what your analysis misses is that a large share of health care costs in the USA is paid by private employers to private insurance companies, and the value of those payments is not included in adjusted disposable income. When you take that into account, how you equalize shouldn't make a significant difference. Employer payments in the USA make up for higher health care costs.

Apologies in advance if I'm repeating what you already know. In the USA, most employees are covered by employer sponsored health insurance. And most (but not all) of their health care costs are effectively paid by their employers. The federal government pays for Medicare for people over 65 and some of the disabled, Medicaid for the indigent, and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) subsidies apply to others.

Also, please note from your link, "Information is also presented for gross household disposable income including social transfers in kind, such as health or education provided for free or at reduced prices [B]by governments and not-for-profit organisations.[/B] This indicator is in US dollars per capita at current prices and PPPs. In the System of National Accounts, household disposable income including social transfers in kind is referred to as 'adjusted household disposable income. ".

Private employers are not governments or not-for-profit organizations, so presumably their contributions to health care are not included in adjusted disposable income.

Per capita health consumption expenditures in the USA are about $12,000 per year, compared to $6,700 per year in Germany:

[URL]https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries-2/[/URL]

I'm kind of pulling numbers out of the air, but of the $12,000 per year, perhaps $5,000 is paid by employers, $5,000 by the USA Government, and $2,000 by individuals. So, for this example, maybe you could say USA Adjusted disposable or median income should be reduced by $2,000 per person. BUT, I imagine that there are health care costs in Germany that are paid by individuals directly too, so you'd need to reduce German per capita income too.

What's amazing to me is that the USA has a ridiculously inefficient and costly health care system, spends lots of money on defense, and is a very large country. Still it's the most prosperous country in the OECD, in terms of disposable income per capita adjusted for purchasing power. If you kick out Luxembourg (population 640,000), which is small, and Norway, which is a petrostate, the difference is very large. I believe the most important reason for our prosperity is small government as a % of GDP. Sounding like a broken record, more money stays in the hands of the people. And in the private sector, which is the engine of economic growth and jobs.

Have you spent a significant amount of time in both the USA and Europe? If you do that, I suspect your beliefs would change, from observing people's comparative standard of living.

Did you come up with this idea on your own? If so, Kudos, the renowned left wing economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman came up with a similar argument. I believe they largely abandoned it when confronted with my argument above, which is not original -- I read it some place. Now instead Saez and Zucman are arguing that employer payments for health care in the USA actually constitute a regressive tax! Incredible! The hoops they have to jump through.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2764235]I think TK has got something there. Our healthcare system that favors only the very poor and the very rich is an atrocious embarrassment. No other industrial nation in the world denies its citizens universal care. It's just mind-blowing how successfully Republicans have trained their constituency to vote against their own basic interests.

Of course, his reasoning is uber simplified, because that German healthcare for example isn't made possible due to the lower average income, but higher average taxes. Still, there is no denial that our healthcare system is both the worst and most expensive in the civilized world.[/QUOTE]The Republican constituency is mostly covered by medical insurance and Medicare, and is rightfully concerned that government will take a bad system and make it even worse. The Democrats' approach last time around to expand coverage with the Affordable Care Act was doubling down on a failed system, that costs way too much and delivers comparatively poor results. I do give them credit however for finally making Medicare negotiate drug prices.

Only about 10% of Americans are uninsured. So yes, while we should have universal care, it's even more important to bring down the cost and improve outcomes. Maybe the federal government should allow states to opt out of Medicare, Medicaid, etc. , and instead receive cash payments from the Federal government. Then those that chose to do so could come up with their own systems. One might opt for "nationalizing" the system while another might try to incentivize competition while providing a safety net. Presumably whatever works would be adopted by other states. Just an idea, probably a bad one, but just about anything would work better than what we have now.

I know this is from Italy. But.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQLd6iH8oow[/URL]

A new political party born from Diem 25. They now have parties in Greece, Germany, Italy. They are growing fast. People and seeing the need for chage, for a new direction. And the overall man behind the wheel, Yanis Varoufakis, is my current politcal hero. Transnationalism is on the rise. Its your life. Grab it and take it, its yours.

Smthg like this could well be born from disilllusionment in the USA. Would you support it, would you fight for it, or are you too comfortable in your own world? We need a new direction. The only obstacle are the people that don't think change is possible.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2764274]The Republican constituency is mostly covered by medical insurance and Medicare, and is rightfully concerned that government will take a bad system and make it even worse. The Democrats' approach last time around to expand coverage with the Affordable Care Act was doubling down on a failed system, that costs way too much and delivers comparatively poor results. I do give them credit however for finally making Medicare negotiate drug prices.

Only about 10% of Americans are uninsured. So yes, while we should have universal care, it's even more important to bring down the cost and improve outcomes. Maybe the federal government should allow states to opt out of Medicare, Medicaid, etc. , and instead receive cash payments from the Federal government. Then those that chose to do so could come up with their own systems. One might opt for "nationalizing" the system while another might try to incentivize competition while providing a safety net. Presumably whatever works would be adopted by other states. Just an idea, probably a bad one, but just about anything would work better than what we have now.[/QUOTE]"Covered" huh?

You're not covered when you're responsible for copayments, deductible and often co-insurance.

You're not covered when your plan tells you how limited your treatment options are (only so many chemotherapy sessions are covered, some life-saving surgeries are not, etc).

You're not covered by Medicare when it only covers 80% of services, and Medigap plans for the elderlies cost as much as a normal commercial insurance plan for a younger person.

Why not Medicare Advantage then? Well, try it, then come back and tell us how many providers have refused to see you.

So those 90% who you claim are "insured" - they ain't. They only think they are.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2764253]JustTK, what your analysis misses is that a large share of health care costs in the USA is paid by private employers to private insurance companies, and the value of those payments is not included in adjusted disposable income. [/QUOTE]I don't think its appropriate to criticize my example bcos it does not take account of XYZ. I didn't share it as a fait acumpli. It is just a very simplified example to demonstrate how the choice of benchmark can affect the outcome. I made no attempt to account for all factors. Tiny, neither you nor I have access to all the necessary factors that must be accounted for. But what I do know is that the cost of healthcare to the avge Joe in the USA is much higher than anywhere else in the world, and certainly higher than the cost that each state takes on in providing public health care in each developed country. Spartanbrain made the best point (and maybe only point) in his most recent post about limitatons in private healthcare. Also note that its the better paid jobs that have healthcare, not the poorer folks, and right, no doubt the 30 million invisibles are properly accounted for too in healthcare coverage in the state records (hehe).

So in summary, neither yof us can say with any accuracy. I am merely saying I do not accept the stats as given bcos there is a high degree of uncertainty in it. Difficulties in benchmarking, and also unaccounted unpeople. I hope that explains my position. And going back to start of this exchange. I still stand by the squeeze on the middle class, and if you want to deny that, you need to show that the situation of the middle class has not diminished over time. The research study I included clearly shows the opposite.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2764235]I think TK has got something there. Our healthcare system that favors only the very poor and the very rich is an atrocious embarrassment. No other industrial nation in the world denies its citizens universal care. It's just mind-blowing how successfully Republicans have trained their constituency to vote against their own basic interests.

Of course, his reasoning is uber simplified, because that German healthcare for example isn't made possible due to the lower average income, but higher average taxes. Still, there is no denial that our healthcare system is both the worst and most expensive in the civilized world.[/QUOTE]Here's the thing. America's "health care" costs $3. 6 trillion every year (about that, anyway). So, with a 330 million population, that's about $11,000 per person or $44,000 for a family of 4. Granted, some of that $44,000 is paid for by insurance, but a lot isn't. But even then, somebody has to pay, right? Of course, dumb Republicans think that that's OK, even though it is, by definition, socialism. What's worse is that a study said that "Medicare for All" would cost $36 trillion over 10 years. I don't know about you, but when I went to school, 3.6 times 10 equaled 36.

And yes, the dumb Repubs keep getting their stupid voters to vote against their best interest. When Donnie the Dumbass said that he loved the uneducated, he was correct.

Let's not forget, though, that the US' "average tax rate" is 37% whereas Germany's is 45%. Higher, yes, but not abnormally so. [URL]https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-taxed-countries[/URL].

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2764300]"Covered" huh?

You're not covered when you're responsible for copayments, deductible and often co-insurance.

You're not covered when your plan tells you how limited your treatment options are (only so many chemotherapy sessions are covered, some life-saving surgeries are not, etc).

You're not covered by Medicare when it only covers 80% of services, and Medigap plans for the elderlies cost as much as a normal commercial insurance plan for a younger person.

Why not Medicare Advantage then? Well, try it, then come back and tell us how many providers have refused to see you.

So those 90% who you claim are "insured" - they ain't. They only think they are.[/QUOTE]Good post. You'd make a good Baptist preacher. Or politician or trial attorney or something. You need to amp up the sanctimonious outrage a couple of notches though, and start with it instead of waiting until the end.

I don't disagree. In 2020 about 36% of health care expenditures were made by the federal government, and 14% by state and local governments. That's 50% altogether. And health care expenditures were about 19.5% of GDP. They'll come down a little in the post-COVID era and then go back up again. But anyway about 9. 5% of health care is paid for by government.

Western Europeans pay around 11% of GDP, total, for healthcare. And they have better outcomes than we do. Singapore pays 4% and people there live 6. 5 years longer on average than in the USA. Colombia, Thailand, Turkey, and Albania all have longer life expectancies than the USA. Costa Ricans live 3 years longer. And all those countries spend way less, per capita and as a % of GDP, than our government alone spends on health care. We should be able to ramp that 9. 5% that government spends up to 11% and provide universal health care with better outcomes. Actually I think we should be able to do that for less than 9. 5%.

Your belief that if the Democratic Party had complete control all would be hunky dory is a fantasy. Yeah we can cover all those things you mention that aren't covered, and make it where people don't have to pay zip out of pocket, but the Democratic Party solutions won't do jack to control costs or improve outcomes, except perhaps to lower drug costs. I say "perhaps" because, despite their control of the House, Senate and Presidency, they only managed to get Medicare to negotiate drug prices. They might also have done something about insulin cost too, I'm not sure as I didn't follow it that closely. In any event they don't appear to have the guts to stand up to the providers and the hospitals and the insurance companies and the drug companies when they price gouge and game the system. Or institute a single payer system.

The one exception WAS Bernie Sanders. He used to say with Medicare for All you're not going to have Cadillac health care, where your doctor is allowed to pick a drug that isn't any better than another one that's cheaper, or you can spend tons of money on end of life care, or have government pay for high cost experimental cancer treatments that haven't been showed to work. He doesn't say that much any more though, because he knows it doesn't appeal to the base.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2764435]Here's the thing. America's "health care" costs $3. 6 trillion every year (about that, anyway). So, with a 330 million population, that's about $11,000 per person or $44,000 for a family of 4. Granted, some of that $44,000 is paid for by insurance, but a lot isn't. But even then, somebody has to pay, right? Of course, dumb Republicans think that that's OK, even though it is, by definition, socialism. What's worse is that a study said that "Medicare for All" would cost $36 trillion over 10 years. I don't know about you, but when I went to school, 3.6 times 10 equaled 36.

And yes, the dumb Repubs keep getting their stupid voters to vote against their best interest. When Donnie the Dumbass said that he loved the uneducated, he was correct.

Let's not forget, though, that the US' "average tax rate" is 37% whereas Germany's is 45%. Higher, yes, but not abnormally so. [URL]https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-taxed-countries[/URL].[/QUOTE]You'd really upped your game. Sorry to see it slip back. Yes, it's those stupid, evil Republicans. They're responsible for all the world's ills.

About your last paragraph, those are maximum marginal tax rates, and the number for the USA Is low. With the Obamacare tax it's an additional 3. 8%, or 40.8%. Add in the average state income tax rate and we're probably higher than Germany. In California the total would be 54.1%. The USA BTW has the most progressive tax system in the developed world.

What you should be looking at are government revenues as a % of GDP. See [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP[/URL]. This is for 2020, so the expenditures in the same table are misleading because of COVID, but the revenues should be consistent with past years.

Here they are for the USA, Germany and France.

USA: 30.3%.

Germany: 46.9%.

France: 52.5%.

If you look at other tables I've linked to, you'll see that by various measures the average resident of the USA is more prosperous than the average resident of Germany, who in turn is more prosperous than your average Frenchman.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2764503]Good post. You'd make a good Baptist preacher. Or politician or trial attorney or something. You need to amp up the sanctimonious outrage a couple of notches though, and start with it instead of waiting until the end.

I don't disagree. In 2020 about 36% of health care expenditures were made by the federal government, and 14% by state and local governments. That's 50% altogether. And health care expenditures were about 19.5% of GDP. They'll come down a little in the post-COVID era and then go back up again. But anyway about 9. 5% of health care is paid for by government.

Western Europeans pay around 11% of GDP, total, for healthcare. And they have better outcomes than we do. Singapore pays 4% and people there live 6. 5 years longer on average than in the USA. Colombia, Thailand, Turkey, and Albania all have longer life expectancies than the USA. Costa Ricans live 3 years longer. And all those countries spend way less, per capita and as a % of GDP, than our government alone spends on health care. We should be able to ramp that 9. 5% that government spends up to 11% and provide universal health care with better outcomes. Actually I think we should be able to do that for less than 9. 5%.

Your belief that if the Democratic Party had complete control all would be hunky dory is a fantasy. Yeah we can cover all those things you mention that aren't covered, and make it where people don't have to pay zip out of pocket, but the Democratic Party solutions won't do jack to control costs or improve outcomes, except perhaps to lower drug costs. I say "perhaps" because, despite their control of the House, Senate and Presidency, they only managed to get Medicare to negotiate drug prices. They might also have done something about insulin cost too, I'm not sure as I didn't follow it that closely. In any event they don't appear to have the guts to stand up to the providers and the hospitals and the insurance companies and the drug companies when they price gouge and game the system. Or institute a single payer system.

The one exception WAS Bernie Sanders. He used to say with Medicare for All you're not going to have Cadillac health care, where your doctor is allowed to pick a drug that isn't any better than another one that's cheaper, or you can spend tons of money on end of life care, or have government pay for high cost experimental cancer treatments that haven't been showed to work. He doesn't say that much any more though, because he knows it doesn't appeal to the base.[/QUOTE]Interesting! You call my view on our healthcare system "sanctimonious outrage," then immediately say you "don't disagree. " Then you provide really good examples from around the world that serve like an excellent reinforcement of my notion of how atrocious our own healthcare system is, then you confirm that it's entirely possible to provide all citizen with the universal care within our current budget or just for a little more.

Well, seeing how we're both on the same page here, what makes me a preacher or "whatever" then?

Aha, it's the Democrats who have failed to control the costs.

I wonder where you've been in the last 14 years and how you have managed to miss the total war declared by Republicans on Obamacare even though Obamacare efforts were based on what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts. Then there was the sheer madness of the Republican propaganda machine comparing Obama to both Stalin and Hitler, accusing ACA of being akin to the Third Reich's "euthanasia" program, followed by countless lawsuits and obstruction and sabotage, in other words, the only things the Republicans have really excelled in since Gingrich.

You're blaming the Democrats for their inability to control prices. Fine, I'm not saying they're blameless, but even if they were. How are you going to control prices with the Reps refusing to reign in that abomination AKA Medicare Advantage plans?

Which party has consistently blocked Medicare from negotiating prices with the Pharma that you seem to be in favor of? Want to guess?

Which party is lobbying to replace Medicare with vouchers to buy healthcare from private insurers?

You're claiming the Dems should've done more having controlled the Congress and White House, like you're not aware that their razor-thin "control" has been undermined by Munchin and Sinema at every step.

Seriously, those elephants in the room where you're typing your posts -- it's got to be really hard to ignore them. Don't know how you manage.

[URL]https://seekingalpha.com/news/3890099-gop-senators-introduce-bill-to-undo-medicare-prescription-drug-negotiation[/URL]

[URL]https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/01/fact-sheet-by-the-numbers-millions-of-americans-would-lose-health-care-coverage-benefits-and-protections-under-congressional-republicans-plans/[/URL]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2764435]Here's the thing. America's "health care" costs $3. 6 trillion every year (about that, anyway). So, with a 330 million population, that's about $11,000 per person or $44,000 for a family of 4. Granted, some of that $44,000 is paid for by insurance, but a lot isn't. But even then, somebody has to pay, right? Of course, dumb Republicans think that that's OK, even though it is, by definition, socialism. What's worse is that a study said that "Medicare for All" would cost $36 trillion over 10 years. I don't know about you, but when I went to school, 3.6 times 10 equaled 36.

And yes, the dumb Repubs keep getting their stupid voters to vote against their best interest. When Donnie the Dumbass said that he loved the uneducated, he was correct.

Let's not forget, though, that the US' "average tax rate" is 37% whereas Germany's is 45%. Higher, yes, but not abnormally so. [URL]https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-taxed-countries[/URL].[/QUOTE]Even the demonstrably Repub-leaning Emerson poll shows Trump being supported overwhelmingly by the uneducated. Which is convenient for his Party's penchant for promoting disastrous policies that produce horrific results. Ignorant and ill-informed people are easier to convince that never happened or if it did it was the Dems' fault or, easiest of all, that it was the fault of "Bothsides. ".

[B]Trump would beat DeSantis in 2024, as Biden approval rate remains underwater, new poll finds[/B]

[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/22/trump-would-beat-desantis-in-2024-biden-approval-rate-underwater.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]The poll noted an education divide exists among Republican primary voters, according to Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.

Voters with a high school degree or less support Trump by 71%. Voters with a college degree, some college, or an associates degree support him by 53%.

Republican voters with a postgraduate degree support Trump the least, at 32%.[/QUOTE]Also, this demonstrably Repub-leaning polling service has Trump totally obliterating Trump Without The Flash DeSantis and Biden beating both of them in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.

Oh, and a majority of the respondents think investigations of Repub Party Leader Icon Trump's Democracy-hating, America-hating, Anti-America January 6, 2021 Violent, Cop-Killing Insurrection should continue.

Guy Standing was simply Out-Standing in this chat.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhdRrTDl1Q[/URL]

"A new system of basic income, where basic income for all is the foundational anchor of that system. It would allow people to do less destructive work. Making less emphasis on jobs. What the hell are we doing? Jobs, jobs, jobs? Jobs are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. I want people to do more work of care, more volunteering, more ecological work, more leisure. I think the Left has lost it if they think that maximising jobs is the answer to any sensible question. We have to have a new agenda. ".

[QUOTE=JustTK;2764704]Guy Standing was simply Out-Standing in this chat.
[/QUOTE]When there is no angle to write how shlt Chump is, the silence is deafening here.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2764565]Even the demonstrably Repub-leaning Emerson poll shows Trump being supported overwhelmingly by the uneducated. Which is convenient for his Party's penchant for promoting disastrous policies that produce horrific results. Ignorant and ill-informed people are easier to convince that never happened or if it did it was the Dems' fault or, easiest of all, that it was the fault of "Bothsides. ".

[B]Trump would beat DeSantis in 2024, as Biden approval rate remains underwater, new poll finds[/B]

[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/22/trump-would-beat-desantis-in-2024-biden-approval-rate-underwater.html[/URL]

Also, this demonstrably Repub-leaning polling service has Trump totally obliterating Trump Without The Flash DeSantis and Biden beating both of them in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.

Oh, and a majority of the respondents think investigations of Repub Party Leader Icon Trump's Democracy-hating, America-hating, Anti-America January 6, 2021 Violent, Cop-Killing Insurrection should continue.[/QUOTE]What is worse in your opinion, being educated and not working to your potential or being uneducated and working to your potential? Whats better for society? In the age of "instant information" is a 200 k college degree really necessary to be truly educated in order to solve the most important problems in society? Are people voting to solve problems or vote for the candidate who makes them feel good in the moment? Are politicians working to solve problems like immigration, societal cohesiveness / equality, affordable healthcare, quality education, inflation, opportunities to achieve happiness? Or are they working to just win an election? Are people voting for the most qualified candidate or the political party the candidate represents no matter how ineffective the individual candidate may be?

I don't think you can solve any of these problems until the extreme forms of tribalism are eliminated from politics. Logical solutions without human bias is what both parties need. Need more than two parties at this point as well. No more picking the lesser of two evils.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765338]When there is no angle to write how shlt Chump is, the silence is deafening here.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=JustTK;2764704]Guy Standing was simply Out-Standing in this chat.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhdRrTDl1Q[/URL]

"A new system of basic income, where basic income for all is the foundational anchor of that system. It would allow people to do less destructive work. Making less emphasis on jobs. What the hell are we doing? Jobs, jobs, jobs? Jobs are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. I want people to do more work of care, more volunteering, more ecological work, more leisure. I think the Left has lost it if they think that maximising jobs is the answer to any sensible question. We have to have a new agenda. ".[/QUOTE]The video's an hour long. I don't have time to watch all of it.

As to the quote, which I presume was spoken by one European talking to other Europeans, it highlights another reason besides smaller government why Americans are more prosperous than Europeans -- the American Work Ethic. Americans work harder and longer.

There's synergy with smaller government here. When the taxman isn't taking half your income, through income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and a VAT, like in Europe, you're more motivated to work. I am anyway.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2764525]Interesting! You call my view on our healthcare system "sanctimonious outrage," then immediately say you "don't disagree. " Then you provide really good examples from around the world that serve like an excellent reinforcement of my notion of how atrocious our own healthcare system is, then you confirm that it's entirely possible to provide all citizen with the universal care within our current budget or just for a little more.

Well, seeing how we're both on the same page here, what makes me a preacher or "whatever" then?

Aha, it's the Democrats who have failed to control the costs.

I wonder where you've been in the last 14 years and how you have managed to miss the total war declared by Republicans on Obamacare even though Obamacare efforts were based on what Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts. Then there was the sheer madness of the Republican propaganda machine comparing Obama to both Stalin and Hitler, accusing ACA of being akin to the Third Reich's "euthanasia" program, followed by countless lawsuits and obstruction and sabotage, in other words, the only things the Republicans have really excelled in since Gingrich.

You're blaming the Democrats for their inability to control prices. Fine, I'm not saying they're blameless, but even if they were. How are you going to control prices with the Reps refusing to reign in that abomination AKA Medicare Advantage plans?

Which party has consistently blocked Medicare from negotiating prices with the Pharma that you seem to be in favor of? Want to guess?

Which party is lobbying to replace Medicare with vouchers to buy healthcare from private insurers?

You're claiming the Dems should've done more having controlled the Congress and White House, like you're not aware that their razor-thin "control" has been undermined by Munchin and Sinema at every step.

Seriously, those elephants in the room where you're typing your posts -- it's got to be really hard to ignore them. Don't know how you manage.

[URL]https://seekingalpha.com/news/3890099-gop-senators-introduce-bill-to-undo-medicare-prescription-drug-negotiation[/URL]

[URL]https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/01/fact-sheet-by-the-numbers-millions-of-americans-would-lose-health-care-coverage-benefits-and-protections-under-congressional-republicans-plans/[/URL][/QUOTE]You need to learn how to accept praise gracefully. And accept constructive criticism and learn from it. I'm the founder of the Church of Tiny*, which promotes free markets and social liberties. And while I promote a message of love and fellowship, like a good Methodist, I highly respect those who use fire and brimstone instead. And there's just not nearly enough fire and brimstone in your earlier message (#11049) and it doesn't even crop up until the end.

Yes, we know the faults of the Republicans as they relate to health care. The beloved Democratic Politicians however will never fix the system. It's like what I wrote about Bernie Sanders. At one time he was honest about what had to be done, how we wouldn't be able to get every drug or every doctor we want with a Medicare for All plan that wouldn't bankrupt the country. And he had to abandon that message. Because the Democratic Party is the Party of Free Money with No Accountability.

Moreover, rationalizing the system would upset the apple cart. The pharmaceutical and insurance industries do contribute slightly more to Republicans than Democrats. Slightly more. Many Democrats are sucking at the tit of big health businesses. They don't want to lose that tit.

Furthermore, who are the strongest supporters of the Democratic Party? The trial lawyers, that's who. They sue insurance companies, drug companies, doctors and hospitals for a living. If we're going to have better quality, lower cost care, we need to go to a single payer system. That means no health insurance companies to sue. And how about the ridiculous premiums many doctors and hospitals have to pay for liability insurance? The huge amounts of money that have been sucked out of the pharma companies and the pharmacies by the trial lawyers? Think about Fentanyl for example, which may eventually bankrupt CVS and Walgreens. All that has to go if we're going to implement a rational health care system. And the Democratic Party isn't going to bite the hands of some of its biggest sugar daddies.

And don't fool yourself about Sinema and Manchin. There were other Democratic Senators just as in hock to the drug companies as Sinema. If she hadn't come through for them, and limited the damage to Medicare and insulin, others would have stepped forward. In fact, supposedly the reason we still have carried interest treatment for management fees of private equity firms is because Sinema was running interference for Chuck Schumer, historically a stalwart for Wall Street. Still, I love that woman. She kept Congress and Biden from raising my taxes. And she's bisexual.

*Please send your tax deductible contribution to Church of Tiny, Account #123456, SWIFT ABCDEF, National Bank of the Cayman Islands. And thank you for your support!

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2765351]If we're going to have better quality, lower cost care, we need to go to a single payer system. That means no health insurance companies to sue. And how about the ridiculous premiums many doctors and hospitals have to pay for liability insurance? The huge amounts of money that have been sucked out of the pharma companies and the pharmacies by the trial lawyers? Think about Fentanyl for example, which may eventually bankrupt CVS and Walgreens. All that has to go if we're going to implement a rational health care system. [/QUOTE]Amen brother!

Who's arguing? Not me!

Single payer. No private carriers, except maybe for the very rich, but with no access to Medicare funds. And even that needs to be allowed with care.

Severe limitations on awarding damages.

Strict regulation of the liability insurance industry, although with the previous condition established, the market may take care of that.

The law prohibiting pharma and [B]medical supply industry[/B] (don't forget that wasteful monster) charge America more than they do overseas.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2765351]And the Democratic Party isn't going to bite the hands of some of its biggest sugar daddies.[/QUOTE]Some of them maybe.

But they'll have a chance to go to the dark side, across the isle.

Sooner or later we'll get there. Every absurdity ends at some point, even a huge one like our healthcare system.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2765341] it highlights another reason besides smaller government why Americans are more prosperous than Europeans -- the American Work Ethic. Americans work harder and longer.
[/QUOTE]Here are a dozen reasons why stats show USA as wealthy, in no particular order:

Relatively new country, previously unexploited / developed.

A large landmass – can accommodate large population.

2 expansive coastlines – ideal for shipping to several continents.

Temperate climate and fertile land.

Abundant fresh water.

Huge reserves of oil and coal.

Slave trade.

Genocide of indigenous population.

Lack of participation in 2 world wars.

Long way from Europe and therefore too far to bomb.

Lots of small countries nearby to invade and exploit.

Millions of unpeople not recorded in stats.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2765357]Amen brother!

Who's arguing? Not me!

Single payer. No private carriers, except maybe for the very rich, but with no access to Medicare funds. And even that needs to be allowed with care.

Severe limitations on awarding damages.

Strict regulation of the liability insurance industry, although with the previous condition established, the market may take care of that.

The law prohibiting pharma and [B]medical supply industry[/B] (don't forget that wasteful monster) charge America more than they do overseas.

Some of them maybe.

But they'll have a chance to go to the dark side, across the isle.

Sooner or later we'll get there. Every absurdity ends at some point, even a huge one like our healthcare system.[/QUOTE]Damn. We agree, don't we. Except for the part about the dark side. The only flickers of light in our wicked political system came from New Mexico (Gary Johnson) and Michigan (Justin Amash). Republican flickers. But they were quickly snuffed out by the sin and iniquity of evil men.

Now you see Xpartan, I just tried the fire and brimstone, the "flickers of light" thing, and that's the best I can come up with. It's weak. You're gifted though. So the next time I tell you to amp up the sanctimonious outrage don't get all pouty. I'm just trying to help develop your true potential.

If you get elected President I'm expecting payback, maybe something like Secretary of Health and Human Services. That way you'll know I won't stab you in the back, since we're both on the same page on the health care system.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765372]Here are a dozen reasons why stats show USA as wealthy, in no particular order:

Slave trade.

Genocide of indigenous population.

Lots of small countries nearby to invade and exploit.

[/QUOTE]There's only one JustTK! Interesting post as always, even though I strongly disagree with about half of it.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2765411]There's only one JustTK! Interesting post as always, even though I strongly disagree with about half of it.[/QUOTE]Hehe, got to keep these rabid nationalists on the straight and narrow.

You might not like the list but I am amazed you can disagree with the truth of any of it.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765417]Hehe, got to keep these rabid nationalists on the straight and narrow.

You might not like the list but I am amazed you can disagree with the truth of any of it.[/QUOTE]Well, just take the three I highlighted. I have no disagreement that these things occurred and were travesties. But to say that they're responsible for USA economic outperformance one hundred years later is a stretch. I'd argue the USA Would be more prosperous if those events had never happened.

The south is WORSE off today because of slavery. I'd attribute higher income per capita in New York and California compared to the south partly to the lingering effects of a slave economy and reconstruction. Or at least it's sure as hell not because they're smarter than we are. I also suspect the North would be a little better off today if the Civil War would never had occurred. And if there had been no slavery, there would have been no Civil War.

Invading and exploiting central American and Caribbean countries was probably either a net drain or not meaningful to the USA economy, just like invading nearby countries is a net drain on Putin's Russia.

As to the genocide of Native Americans, our economy would be larger with the extra population from the descendants of indigenous people. The genocides perpetrated by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Hutus, and the Ottoman empire hurt their economies as well, big time.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2765340]What is worse in your opinion, being educated and not working to your potential or being uneducated and working to your potential? Whats better for society? In the age of "instant information" is a 200 k college degree really necessary to be truly educated in order to solve the most important problems in society? Are people voting to solve problems or vote for the candidate who makes them feel good in the moment? Are politicians working to solve problems like immigration, societal cohesiveness / equality, affordable healthcare, quality education, inflation, opportunities to achieve happiness? Or are they working to just win an election? Are people voting for the most qualified candidate or the political party the candidate represents no matter how ineffective the individual candidate may be?

I don't think you can solve any of these problems until the extreme forms of tribalism are eliminated from politics. Logical solutions without human bias is what both parties need. Need more than two parties at this point as well. No more picking the lesser of two evils.[/QUOTE]There are more than two Parties already. Have been for all of our lifetimes. However, the reality is one of the two biggest ones will control the House, the Senate and the White House for the rest of our lives and our great grandchildren's lives. It's a lovely, fanciful thought though.

Of course, pushing for a stronger third Party presence will likely get a lot of Repubs elected along the way. And I don't know how many more Great Repub Recessions, Massive Jobs Destruction, Skyrocketing Deficits With Nothing To Show For It, Unprecedented Disasters, etc America or any country could withstand. So there is a huge risk in it.

Maybe a third Party candidate will win the WH someday. But he or she won't get anything done or undone. At best, it'll just be an interesting waste of time and energy fluke with an asterisk next to it in the history books.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2765432]There are more than two Parties already. Have been for all of our lifetimes. However, the reality is one of the two biggest ones will control the House, the Senate and the White House for the rest of our lives and our great grandchildren's lives. It's a lovely, fanciful thought though.

Of course, pushing for a stronger third Party presence will likely get a lot of Repubs elected along the way. And I don't know how many more Great Repub Recessions, Massive Jobs Destruction, Skyrocketing Deficits With Nothing To Show For It, Unprecedented Disasters, etc America or any country could withstand. So there is a huge risk in it.

Maybe a third Party candidate will win the WH someday. But he or she won't get anything done or undone. At best, it'll just be an interesting waste of time and energy fluke with an asterisk next to it in the history books.[/QUOTE]I would be in favor of four. Far right, moderate right, moderate left and far left.

"Of course, pushing for a stronger third Party presence will likely get a lot of Repubs elected along the way. And I don't know how many more Great Repub Recessions, Massive Jobs Destruction, Skyrocketing Deficits With Nothing To Show For It, Unprecedented Disasters, etc America or any country could withstand. So there is a huge risk in it. " - What exactly do you mean by this?

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2765572]"Of course, pushing for a stronger third Party presence will likely get a lot of Repubs elected along the way. And I don't know how many more Great Repub Recessions, Massive Jobs Destruction, Skyrocketing Deficits With Nothing To Show For It, Unprecedented Disasters, etc America or any country could withstand. So there is a huge risk in it. " - What exactly do you mean by this?[/QUOTE]Tooms views the world through blue colored lenses. He's the most partisan intelligent person I've come across in real or cyber life. He believes the world will end if Republicans control the country, while Democrats would usher in heaven on earth.

The largest 3rd party, which still receives only a minimal % of the vote, is the Libertarian Party. It drains off more Republican than Democratic votes. Look at Georgia this year. In the governor's race, the Republicans had a decent candidate, Brian Kemp. The Libertarian only got 0.7% of the vote. Herschel Walker is the Republican candidate in the Georgia Senate Race. He's a lousy candidate, maybe the lousiest nominated by either party this year. The only reason he's the nominee is because Trump supported him from the outset of his campaign. Anyway, in that race, the Libertarian, Chase Oliver, got 2.1% of the vote. His campaign spent a grand total of $7,790, compared to the hundreds of millions spent by and on behalf of the other candidates. And through the race, he held down a full time job as an HR executive, and a part time gig with a financial services company. His campaign slogan was "armed and gay."

So basically, Republicans and Republican leaning independents went to the poles and voted for Kemp. But they couldn't quite hold their noses and vote for Walker, so they voted for the Libertarian. This is repeated in elections all the time. This year I voted mostly for Libertarians when I had a choice, because the Republicans on the ballot mostly supported Trump's attempted election fraud. If there had been no Libertarian candidates, I would have voted for more Republicans. But not Trump. We can write in names on the ballot where I live, so I would have picked Amy the Wonder Dog or Gary Johnson instead.

The only third party or independent candidate who undoubtedly made a difference in a US presidential election was Ross Perot, who caused Bill Clinton to win instead of George H. W. Bush.

It's also likely that George W. Bush beat Al Gore on account of Ralph Nader running on the Green Party ticket. So that's one election where the 3rd candidate helped the Republican and another where he helped the Democrat. Sounds fair and balanced to me.

You're not going to see many 3rd party candidates elected Congressmen or Senators. You have to be a Republican or Democrat to win. Gary Johnson was a very popular Republican Governor of a blue state, New Mexico, who won both his elections by 10 points. But when he later ran for Senator as the Libertarian candidate he only won 15.4% of the vote.

So anyway, your idea of more than two parties is great in theory, but, unfortunately, like the plans of Xpartan and me to reform the American healthcare system, unworkable. Third or fourth party candidates will at best be spoilers.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2765669]Tooms views the world through blue colored lenses.

The largest 3rd party, which still receives only a minimal % of the vote, is the Libertarian Party. It drains off more Republican than Democratic votes. Look at Georgia this year. In the governor's race, the Republicans had a decent candidate, Brian Kemp. The Libertarian only got 0.7% of the vote. Herschel Walker is the Republican candidate in the Senate Race. He's a lousy candidate, maybe the lousiest nominated by either party this year. The only reason he's the nominee is because Trump supported him from the outset of his campaign. Anyway, in that race, the Libertarian, Chase Oliver, got 2.1% of the vote. His campaign spent a grand total of $7,790, compared to the hundreds of millions spent by and on behalf of the other candidates. And through the race, he held down a full time job as an HR executive, and a part time gig with a financial services company. His campaign slogan was "armed and gay."

So basically, Republicans and Republican leaning independents went to the poles and voted for Kemp. But they couldn't quite hold their noses and vote for Walker, so they voted for the Libertarian. This is repeated in elections all the time. This year I voted mostly for Libertarians when I had a choice, because the Republicans on the ballot mostly supported Trump's attempted election fraud. If there had been no Libertarian candidates, I would have voted for more Republicans. But not Trump. We can write in names on the ballot where I live, so I would have picked Amy the Wonder Dog or Gary Johnson instead.

The only third party or independent candidate who undoubtedly made a difference in a US presidential election was Ross Perot, who caused Bill Clinton to win instead of George H. W. Bush.

It's also likely that George W. Bush beat Al Gore on account of Ralph Nader running on the Green Party ticket. So that's one election where the 3rd candidate helped the Republican and another where he helped the Democrat. Sounds fair and balanced to me.

You're not going to see many 3rd party candidates elected Congressmen or Senators. You have to be a Republican or Democrat to win. Gary Johnson was a very popular Republican Governor of a blue state, New Mexico, who won both his elections by 10 points. But when he ran for Senator as the Libertarian candidate he only won 15.4% of the vote.

So anyway, your idea of more than two parties is great in theory, but like the plans of Xpartan and me to reform the American healthcare system, unworkable. Third or fourth party candidates will at best be spoilers.[/QUOTE]Duh and the sky is blue Tiny LOL, of course only two parties a have a real chance to win an election. I am not a political scientist and I won't pretend that I have the solution to the problem of American Politics. That being said, I do openly advocate for the possibility to scrap both parties and create a new four party system. In my view, such a system would allow a greater degree of policy and a temporary shift away from the far right and far left which seem to be running both parties.

As I have stated before, it appears politicians are working hardest at winning elections and not actually performing their duties while holding office. A house divided cannot stand and the last few years have shown that. Inflation, immigration crisis, high crime rates, pullout of Iraq, broken healthcare system, War in Ukraine, Closing of pipeline which took 10 years to plan, weekly mass shootings, increase in hate crimes, insurrection, fake scandals, real scandals, etc. You cannot solve these problems until a much higher degree of Unity and Trust is built between parties and the American Public. Unfortunately America's greatest enemy is also its' former ally, itself. My two cents anyway.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2765673]Duh and the sky is blue Tiny LOL, of course only two parties a have a real chance to win an election. I am not a political scientist and I won't pretend that I have the solution to the problem of American Politics. That being said, I do openly advocate for the possibility to scrap both parties and create a new four party system. In my view, such a system would allow a greater degree of policy and a temporary shift away from the far right and far left which seem to be running both parties.

As I have stated before, it appears politicians are working hardest at winning elections and not actually performing their duties while holding office. A house divided cannot stand and the last few years have shown that. Inflation, immigration crisis, high crime rates, pullout of Iraq, broken healthcare system, War in Ukraine, Closing of pipeline which took 10 years to plan, weekly mass shootings, increase in hate crimes, insurrection, fake scandals, real scandals, etc. You cannot solve these problems until a much higher degree of Unity and Trust is built between parties and the American Public. Unfortunately America's greatest enemy is also its' former ally, itself. My two cents anyway.[/QUOTE]All good points. I strongly agree politicians should start doing what's best for the people instead of what's best for themselves or their parties. And the level of partisanship is insane. Republicans didn't used to hate Democrats and vice versa.

Anybody else here strictly partisan in favor of economic boom times, historic jobs creation, rising wages, paying down deficits, producing all of those notable results of the past 100 years and none of the Great Recessions, Massive Jobs Losses or any other "unprecedented" disasters and along the way passing all, not some, of the most effective and now revered legislation in history?

If you are, please cite all of the political parties who made that happen over the past 100 years and be specific how and when. I will gladly vote for whichever one has done it and just as gladly avoid voting for all the rest.

By my research and easily observable reality, only one political party comes close; the Democratic Party. So they get my proudly partisan vote.

Now, the party that has consistently produced the exact opposite of those positive results is the Republican Party.

And it turns out one of those two parties have and will in the foreseeable future control the levers of political power and stewardship for the USA.

No others.

So, what to do, what to do? Such a dilemma.

But not really.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2765673]Duh and the sky is blue Tiny LOL, of course only two parties a have a real chance to win an election. I am not a political scientist and I won't pretend that I have the solution to the problem of American Politics. That being said, I do openly advocate for the possibility to scrap both parties and create a new four party system. In my view, such a system would allow a greater degree of policy and a temporary shift away from the far right and far left which seem to be running both parties.

[b]As I have stated before, it appears politicians are working hardest at winning elections and not actually performing their duties while holding office. A house divided cannot stand and the last few years have shown that. Inflation, immigration crisis, high crime rates, pullout of Iraq, broken healthcare system, War in Ukraine, Closing of pipeline which took 10 years to plan, weekly mass shootings, increase in hate crimes, insurrection, fake scandals, real scandals, etc.[/b] You cannot solve these problems until a much higher degree of Unity and Trust is built between parties and the American Public. Unfortunately America's greatest enemy is also its' former ally, itself. My two cents anyway.[/QUOTE]Which of those factors do you presume were triggered by or exacerbated by Biden and the Dems in "the last few years" while the well-meaning and noble-intentioned Trump and Repubs were trying hard to legislate and steward the ship of country from harms way and into better conditions?

Seriously.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2765432]And I don't know how many more Great Repub Recessions, Massive Jobs Destruction, Skyrocketing Deficits With Nothing To Show For It, Unprecedented Disasters, etc America or any country could withstand. So there is a huge risk in it.
[/QUOTE]It will be a whole national history of them bcos nothing will change that until you wake up and smell the roses.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2765749]Anybody else here strictly partisan in favor of economic boom times, historic jobs creation, rising wages, paying down deficits, producing all of those notable results of the past 100 years and none of the Great Recessions, Massive Jobs Losses or any other "unprecedented" disasters and along the way passing all, not some, of the most effective and now revered legislation in history?

If you are, please cite all of the political parties who made that happen over the past 100 years and be specific how and when. I will gladly vote for whichever one has done it and just as gladly avoid voting for all the rest.

By my research and easily observable reality, only one political party comes close; the Democratic Party. So they get my proudly partisan vote..[/QUOTE]That's the thing about the stupid Repubs. They spew BS and then try to cover it up by saying that all reports of their BS come from "lamestream media" and, therefore, can't be trusted. Mainstream media can't be trusted. Fact check sites can't be trusted. Your own eyes can't be trusted. The only sources that [B]can[/B] be trusted, according to dumber-than-dogshit Repubs, are Donnie the Dumbass, Fucker Carlson, FUX Snooze talking heads, "Q", Alex Jones, etc. Sources that, combined, don't have the IQ of the deuce I dropped this morning!

Dems aren't perfect, but at least they try. Repubs don't try. In fact, their [B]only[/B] legislative policy is to "own the libs". Here's just the tip of the iceberg [URL]https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/nov/25/fox-news-crime-coverage-decline-us-midterm-elections[/URL] The Repubs campaigned, among other things, about how bad crime was. Unsurprisingly, once the election was over and they lost "bigly", crime wasn't so much of an issue. I have said before that stupid Repubs would begin investigating every Dem whose name they could spell and they have already indicated as much. They have already indicated that they will use the debt ceiling to extract promises from Dems or shut down the government if they don't get those promises. But I won't bother to post any sources because the dumber-than-dogshit Repubs will trash the sources.

[blue][Deleted by Admin][/blue]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2765796]Which of those factors do you presume were triggered by or exacerbated by Biden and the Dems in "the last few years" while the well-meaning and noble-intentioned Trump and Repubs were trying hard to legislate and steward the ship of country from harms way and into better conditions?

Seriously.[/QUOTE]Don't take this personal, but guys like you are the problem. Your blind loyalty to your party is destroying the country. You refuse to hold representatives accountable for their failures. Do you actually approve of Biden and the Democratic Party's performance?

He has failed on Immigration, Transportation, Inflation, Foreign Affairs, Trade / supply chain issues, high crime rates, promoting agendas which take away funding from law enforcement when we need it most. The list of failures for his administration is astounding, I was shocked the democrats did so well in the midterms and it showed me that sadly, people no longer care about job performance and results. They just blindly vote for candidates who yell things into a microphone that make them feel good in the moment. All the while the ship is slowly sinking and taking us all down with it.

When Bush fucked up in Iraq, he didn't get my vote. When economy crashed from Repub. Policies, Romney didn't get my vote. Trump's unprofessional rhetoric and form of politics will have me advocate for any other republican candidate over him. I won't support failure from leaders.

Personally, I believe Biden and the Democratic party have not earned the right to continue their administration as of right now due to their ineffective performance.

Please feel free to enlighten me and elaborate on where I am wrong here.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2765427]

Invading and exploiting central American and Caribbean countries was probably either a net drain or not meaningful to the USA economy, just like invading nearby countries is a net drain on Putin's Russia.

[/QUOTE]Absolutely WRONG. Here is a video explanation on US involvement in the Americas since WW2, when the USA told all other Western countries to leave it all alone bcos it was USA hemisphere:
[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKwJI9axblQ[/URL]

Just think of the control of Panama, think about all the South American countries that wer couped so that US indutsrty would dominate. Think about all those islands and countries that were forced to buy USA products. Think about all those wars that were fought using USA weapons. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2765427]
The south is WORSE off today because of slavery. I also suspect the North would be a little better off today if the Civil War would never had occurred. And if there had been no slavery, there would have been no Civil War.
[/QUOTE]You are denying history.

Historian and author Edward E. Baptist explains how slavery helped the US go from a "colonial economy to the second biggest industrial power in the world. ".
[URL]https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist[/URL]

History shows slavery helped build many USA Colleges and universities.
[URL]https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2017/09/04/shackled-legacy[/URL]

How the Slave Trade Built America. The New York Times. The economic engine of the slave trade helped to fuel America's prosperity.
[URL]https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/how-the-slave-trade-built-america/[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2765427]
As to the genocide of Native Americans, our economy would be larger with the extra population from the descendants of indigenous people. [/QUOTE]This is a ridiculous claim. The USA would NOT exist if it hadn't genocided the native Americans. I don't know what North America would look like now if it had respected the land rights of its original settlers, it would make for an interesting read.

But certainly the USA would not be what it is.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765943]This is a ridiculous claim. The USA would NOT exist if it hadn't genocided the native Americans. I don't know what North America would look like now if it had respected the land rights of its original settlers, it would make for an interesting read.

But certainly the USA would not be what it is.[/QUOTE]You need to truly study the history of the United States.

The indigenous population of the present day United States had no land rights because they did not even have a concept of land ownership or even a written language. Are you stating that humans do not have the right to migrate to different lands to increase their quality of life?

This is the law of that time period that decided those decisions. No land is yours unless you can defend it. That was the law of the time period which the civilized nations of the world recognized, "and Indigenous people". If there was a land dispute, it was settled by war and the winner decided who gets what.

It's a dirty move to try and paint a nation as commiting genocide when you clearly have no understanding of the events which transpired. From Jamestown to Plymouth to the French and Indian War to the Revolution and even War of 1812, Native Americans fought against the Colonists and then later on allied with the British against the Americans. Thousands of settlers, men-women-children were brutally slaughtered by Native American raids. These attacks spurred greater conflicts which lead to war. They lost, America won. Numerous times assimilation was tried and Native Americans mostly refused to adopt a European lifestyle. Yes, they were forced to move west, but they were not lined up and gunned down to the point they no longer existed. Even today, 10% of all land in the United States is Native American reservations and their population is in the millions.

Funny how you don't see France and England cry genocide for the wars they lost to America and former colonists.

Please TK, you will thank me later, truly educate yourself on this subject and you will see it as it actually occured. Try to look at historical events from all perspectives without bias.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2765890]Don't take this personal, but guys like you are the problem. Your blind loyalty to your party is destroying the country. You refuse to hold representatives accountable for their failures. Do you actually approve of Biden and the Democratic Party's performance?

He has failed on Immigration, Transportation, Inflation, Foreign Affairs, Trade / supply chain issues, high crime rates, promoting agendas which take away funding from law enforcement when we need it most. The list of failures for his administration is astounding,[/QUOTE]Allow me to answer for ET. Its all the fault of Trump and the Rep Party. Just look at the great history of economic policy during the past century under Dem Party leadership, and the calamities made by the Rp Party. I am not sure we can allow the Rep Party to gain power again otherwise they will destroy our great economy.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765969]Allow me to answer for ET. Its all the fault of Trump and the Rep Party. Just look at the great history of economic policy during the past century under Dem Party leadership, and the calamities made by the Rp Party. I am not sure we can allow the Rep Party to gain power again otherwise they will destroy our great economy.[/QUOTE]90 billion to Ukraine? Highest inflation in 40 years? Supply chain crisis? He wants to forgive 200 billion in student loans at the expense of working Americans?

If you are going to make that argument, just back it up with some substance. I genuinely would like to be proven wrong, because I don't see the American public voting Republican any time soon and my faith in his administration is very low based off the performance of the last 2 years.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2765976]90 billion to Ukraine? Highest inflation in 40 years? Supply chain crisis? He wants to forgive 200 billion in student loans at the expense of working Americans?

If you are going to make that argument, just back it up with some substance.[/QUOTE]I was replying for ET. I wasnt giving my opinion. I was just repeating what he always says in his blinkered view.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2765951]You need to truly study the history of the United States.
It's a dirty move to try and paint a nation as commiting genocide when you clearly have no understanding of the events which transpired. They lost, America won. Numerous times assimilation was tried and Native Americans mostly refused to adopt a European lifestyle. Yes, they were forced to move west, but they were not lined up and gunned down to the point they no longer existed.
Funny how you don't see France and England cry genocide for the wars they lost to America and former colonists.
Please TK, you will thank me later, truly educate yourself on this subject and you will see it as it actually occured. Try to look at historical events from all perspectives without bias.[/QUOTE]Oh my word. I never thought I would see the day when I see someone try to deny the genocide. . And then you claim its me that needs to educate myself. Really, I am stunned. Lost for words.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765372]Here are a dozen reasons why stats show USA as wealthy, in no particular order:

Relatively new country, previously unexploited / developed.

A large landmass can accommodate large population.

2 expansive coastlines ideal for shipping to several continents.

Temperate climate and fertile land.

Abundant fresh water.

Huge reserves of oil and coal.[/QUOTE]That is a good list to start with. I would add navigable river ways, the cheapest way to transport goods. Think I read we have more of them than rest of the world combined. Oil is a weird one. It has been a huge boon for us but a lot of times countries fight over who controls the oil and autocracy follows like Venezuela. That is why some call oil, the Devi's excrement.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765372]Slave trade.

Genocide of indigenous population.[/QUOTE]Nah, neither are unique to the USA. USA's greatest economic booms were after slave trade was ended. And indigenous populations were fighting wars prior to our getting here. We just happened to win them.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765372]Lack of participation in 2 world wars.

Long way from Europe and therefore too far to bomb.[/QUOTE]I agree the USA is in a very defensible position, and only country that rivals us defense wise is Japan I think. The nonparticipating notion is ridiculous. We did leave the world wars unscathed though while Europe, our principal competitor, was put in a horrible position.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765372]Lots of small countries nearby to invade and exploit.[/QUOTE]When you consider a company to United Fruit which did exploit Latin American countries, there was a benefit to doing this but it was peanuts compared to the overall economy. United Fruit took these nations over for bananas. Hence, the term banana republic but if you look at the whole market, bananas are a very, very small part of it.

And I think you are looking at this as a one way street versus the two way street it is.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765372]Millions of unpeople not recorded in stats.[/QUOTE]It depends what those people are doing. If they are working, they are helping. If they are on welfare, and many are, they are not. My guess is they are a net positive but I have not seen any data on that subject.

But I think you are missing some big ones unique to the USA. There were so many places in the world where wars over religion were fought. We have had nothing like that and we have put religious freedom in our constitution.

Then there was coming into a nation as an equal. States did not have to do some kind of an internship. And this applied to immigrants as well. With the exception of running for president, immigrants pretty much have the same rights as everyone else when they become citizens. The noble class in Europe was by blood. In the USA, the noble class was the most productive. You can argue whether that is true today or not, but that is how the system was set up.

And although the USA has had its issues with corruption and graft in politics, it is nowhere near as bad as elsewhere. After Hugo Chavez died, I read an article about his daughter and how her father stashed $8 billion in her name in an account. There is nothing on that scale here in the USA.

With the disgusting exception of Bill Clinton, who might be the worst ex-president we have ever had, our ex-presidents live comfortable but not grandiose lives.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2765890]Don't take this personal, but guys like you are the problem. Your blind loyalty to your party is destroying the country. You refuse to hold representatives accountable for their failures. Do you actually approve of Biden and the Democratic Party's performance?

He has failed on Immigration, Transportation, Inflation, Foreign Affairs, Trade / supply chain issues, high crime rates, promoting agendas which take away funding from law enforcement when we need it most. The list of failures for his administration is astounding, I was shocked the democrats did so well in the midterms and it showed me that sadly, people no longer care about job performance and results. They just blindly vote for candidates who yell things into a microphone that make them feel good in the moment. All the while the ship is slowly sinking and taking us all down with it..[/QUOTE]Don't take this personally, but you haven't explained how on earth Biden and the Dems caused any of the spectacular problems Trump and his Repubs left in their typically disastrous Repub economic and national security stewardship wake.

Or, taken from the other view, how a lower unemployment rate, millions of new jobs created at higher wages, millions fully vaccinated and no longer flooding hospitals with Trump's Pandemic virus, paying down Trump's deficit by 100's of billions per year, passing truly historic bipartisan infrastructure legislation, ensuring we will have the advantage and edge on chips production and sales in the future as well as autonomy and independence on our needs, reducing the cost of healthcare for millions in terms of price caps and drug price negotiations, etc, etc, etc and all in less than two years after the worst Repub to Dem hand off in history is "no improvement" and "failure."

$90 billion to Ukraine? Well, at least that's a bit better than the usual pro Repub Bothsider insistence that WE are at war with Russia in Ukraine. You know, as WE were at war in Afghanistan for every second of Trump's so-called presidency from Noon on January 20,2017 to Noon on January 20,2021. But no longer. Thanks, Joe.

$90 billion is a small price to pay to help shore up worldwide democracy to unprecedented heights, also less than two years after Trump and his Repubs spent 4 years doing everything possible to weaken it while Trump sucked Putin's dick on the world stage. Thanks again, Joe.

Highest inflation since Repub Economic Hero Reagan's second year in office when his unemployment rate was in the midst of ten consecutive months of 10%+ after inheriting month over month declines in both for almost a year before he took office vs 3. 7% today? And while Repub Economic Hero Reagan took us from no recession to one of the worst downturns of all time vs the teeny tiny recession today, if any, that nobody can seem to find in the data and can't even be artificially induced by the Fed?

I assume you are aware that laying the groundwork to create and exacerbate Trump's Pandemic and the global supply-chain destruction hyper-inflation it triggered and is still producing had zero to do the Biden and the Dems but plenty to do with a so-call potus from a different Party. But maybe I assume too much.

Your sense of what constitutes "failure" by Biden and the Dems vs any Repub Economic Hero from Hoover to Eisenhower to Reagan to Either Bush to Trump appears to be, nothing personal, showing a bit of bias toward Repubs.

Immigration crisis? In what way? I mean, since Trump decimated the legal immigration system as some kind of "own the libs" prank on his way out and left otherwise legal immigrant refugee candidates little choice but to cross illegally, are they taking any of those two jobs for every unemployed USA citizen available today? I hope so. We need those jobs filled.

How about illegal crossing immigrants' contribution to those Repub-beloved automatic weapon killings in high crime Red States that began to skyrocket again in 2020? Would you say they are a sizable percentage of them? How about likely not even 1% of them.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766041]Oh my word. I never thought I would see the day when I see someone try to deny the genocide. . And then you claim its me that needs to educate myself. Really, I am stunned. Lost for words.[/QUOTE]LOL, my bad- Let me word it better, Technically it was borderline genocide as most of them lost their land and way of life and I do see where you are coming from.

Here is a different perspective to consider. Both Jamestown and Plymouth and most early settlements were started as financial investments mainly by the Virginia Company. There goal was to obtain raw materials to be sold back in England- Timber, Tobacco, etc. From the very beginning there was conflict between the colonists and the Native Americans. The Wampanoags in Plymouth and Powhatans in Jamestown. Small violent conflicts escalated into all out wars between the English and the Natives. In Jamestown, the Powhatans raided Jamestown and killed 1/2 of the Colonists in an ambush attack. This lead to a war against them which they lost. In Plymouth, for an entire winter the Wampanoags lead by Chief Massasoit raided village after village killing dozens, men-women-children. This lead to a final showdown between the Plymouth Colonists and the Natives in a battle known as the Swamp Battle, the Natives lost and were brutally slaughtered.

These conflicts continued for the next 100 years until the French and Indian War in which the Natives allied with the French against the English. French lost, but Natives lead by Chief Pontiac kept fighting until the English agreed to give them all lands past the Appalachian Mountains. When colonists lead by Daniel Boone started to settle past the Appalachians, this further angered the Native Americans and when the Revolution broke out, the Natives mostly sided with the British, as the British promised them those same lands. British and Natives lost. They lost all land up to the Mississippi River over the next few years at the hands of American Frontier General William Henry Harrison.

Then when the War of 1812 broke out, again the Natives now being lead by Chief Tecumseh of the Shawnee sided with the British. This war ended in a draw for the British and Americans, but the Shawnee were defeated in the present day midwest and the Creek were defeated by Andrew Jackson and his militia in the South. Following the War of 1812, the Native Americans were far too weak to ever wage a significant war against the United States again. They tried several times to win lands, but each time they failed, until they were too weak to fight.

Andrew Jackson would eventually become president, and he hated Native Americans as he fought against them in two wars. He strongly advocated for the policy of Indian Removal in the 1830's and the five great tribes of Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw were forced to sign treaties which relocated them west. This was basically the end of any real threat from Native Americans after this. Geronimo would lead Apache raids in the Southwest and Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse would lead the Lakota Sioux in small rebellions in the late 1800's, but they never posed any real threats.

This is the real history of what transpired between America and the Native Americans. A very brief one, but I hope I pointed that time and again, Native Americans tried to defeat the Colonists / Americans and unfortunately for them, they never succeeded.

Ask yourself this, Would the Native Americans have treated the colonists or British any different had they won? I doubt it. And yes, technically you could argue this was a genocide, but I would argue this is just one group of people who refused modernize and unite and fought multiple losing wars to the point they were so weak they had no room to negotiate to keep their lands against an enemy they had shown deadly aggression towards for generations.

Now if you are going to claim genocide, please just back it up. Explain your reasoning as to why you consider this a genocide.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765943]This is a ridiculous claim. The USA would NOT exist if it hadn't genocided the native Americans. [b] I don't know what North America would look like now if it had respected the land rights of its original settlers, it would make for an interesting read.[/b]

But certainly the USA would not be what it is.[/QUOTE]Here's what you wrote before.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765372]Here are a dozen reasons why stats show USA as wealthy, in no particular order...

Genocide of indigenous population.

[/QUOTE]I understood you to say that the USA wouldn't be as wealthy if not for the genocide of the indigenous population.

If you actually intended to say the wealth of the people in the lands comprising the present day USA would be higher if European settlers hadn't emigrated to North America and pushed aside the natives, I again have to strongly disagree. I've tried to identify a large country that's sparsely populated, has mineral wealth, and has little or no colonial history. The best I can come up with is Mongolia. GDP per capita in Mongolia is $4500 per year in nominal terms and $12,000 adjusted for purchasing power. Similarly, I don't see any way America, north of the Rio Grande, would be as wealthy as it is today without the settlers of European origin.

I'll reply to your other points later. Maybe to Ram's post on this issue too. He's got a point. We shouldn't have been using the word "genocide" to describe the subjugation of Native Americans in the USA. The word doesn't fit. Here's the definition:

"the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group"

I believe most of the deaths were from disease, that is, they weren't intentional killings. And the USA was a piker compared to the Spanish in the New World. I imagine Portugal and Belgium were responsible for a lot more deaths of native peoples than the USA too.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765938]You are denying history.

Historian and author Edward E. Baptist explains how slavery helped the US go from a "colonial economy to the second biggest industrial power in the world. ".
[URL]https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist[/URL]

History shows slavery helped build many USA Colleges and universities.
[URL]https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2017/09/04/shackled-legacy[/URL]

How the Slave Trade Built America. The New York Times. The economic engine of the slave trade helped to fuel America's prosperity.
[URL]https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/how-the-slave-trade-built-america/[/URL][/QUOTE]I'm not denying history. I'm denying that slavery is a reason why the USA is wealthier, per capita, than most other countries today. And in fact believe the USA would be a slightly more prosperous place if there had never been a slave trade.

I quickly scanned your articles and they don't appear to offer any economic statistics that would back up your claim.

Cotton accounted for 5% of the USA Economy on the eve of the Civil War, and 87% of that cotton was exported. Admittedly, some slaves were not engaged on cotton plantations. But then without slavery, there would still have been cotton production from the South, just not as much. And to produce that 5% of GDP, slave labor wasn't the only input. There was land, agricultural equipment, infrastructure, etc. Anyway, I don't think you can attribute any more than 5% of US GDP to slavery just before the Civil War. I got the 5% from here:

See [URL]https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/how-important-was-slavery-to-the-rise-of-us-as-an-economic-power-119082600103_1.html[/URL].

Furthermore, note that,

[b]"The reality is that cotton played a relatively small role in the long-term growth of the US economy. The economics of slavery were probably detrimental to the rise of US manufacturing and almost certainly toxic to the economy of the South. In short: The US succeeded in spite of slavery, not because of it."[/b]

Now, see Figure 1 here:

[URL]https://www.theigc.org/reader/the-cost-of-violence-estimating-the-economic-impact-of-conflict/preventing-violent-conflict-should-be-a-key-priority-for-development-and-growth-policy/19166-2/#text=Even%20 six%20 years%20 after%20 the, makes%20 civil%20 war%20 so%20 costly.[/URL]

The Civil War reduced USA GDP by around 18%, and this reduction was maintained for years after the end of the war. The Civil War would not have occurred if slavery never existed. The decline in GDP from the Civil War far exceeded the % of GDP attributable to cotton.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2765931]Absolutely WRONG. Here is a video explanation on US involvement in the Americas since WW2, when the USA told all other Western countries to leave it all alone bcos it was USA hemisphere:
[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKwJI9axblQ[/URL]

Just think of the control of Panama, think about all the South American countries that wer couped so that US indutsrty would dominate. Think about all those islands and countries that were forced to buy USA products. Think about all those wars that were fought using USA weapons. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.[/QUOTE]That's over an hour long. I don't have time to watch it. Furthermore, Chomsky's about as biased a source as you can find, and he doesn't know any more than you or me about anything except linguistics.

I think I was probably wrong. The USA Invasion of Mexico in 1846 resulted in Mexico ceding California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming to the USA. That did contribute substantially to American wealth. As to all the other South American, Central American and Caribbean countries, I don't accept that invasion and exploitation by the USA had a significant effect on the USA's current wealth.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2765976]90 billion to Ukraine? Highest inflation in 40 years? Supply chain crisis? He wants to forgive 200 billion in student loans at the expense of working Americans?[/QUOTE]1. Putin + Covid.

2. Putin + Covid + Trump.

3. Putin + Covid + Trump.

4. Stop it. A huge part of these "billions" is purely political, like the loans that have been defaulted on and won't be repaid anyway.

But enough of that foolishness.

I wonder why no one mentions that genius Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that promised to usher in a new era of economic prosperity. Remember that?

I can't help but notice how no Repubs who decry "Biden's inflation" ever even mention that $3. 5 trillion Trump's unconditional billionaire tax cuts that have done nothing to help the economy.

Has it added any jobs? In the long term. No.

How about renewed investment? In the long term. No.

Did it grow the wages? No.

Has it repatriated jobs back from the overseas? No.

Can we file taxes on a "on a postcard-sized form"? (Remember that joker Paul Rayan?) Hell, no!

No kidding, the Repubs never mention that grandiose failure nowadays like it's never happened.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766122]Here's what you wrote before.

I understood you to say that the USA wouldn't be as wealthy if not for the genocide of the indigenous population.

I don't see any way America, north of the Rio Grande, would be as wealthy as it is today without the settlers of European origin.

We shouldn't have been using the word "genocide" to describe the subjugation of Native Americans in the USA. Here's the definition:
"the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group"

And the USA was a piker compared to the Spanish in the New World. I imagine Portugal and Belgium were responsible for a lot more deaths of native peoples than the USA too.[/QUOTE]I don't see why you are disagreeing with me here. It seems we both agree that the extermination of the natives was an important step in the development of the USA and that if it hadn't taken place then the USA would not be what it is today. Indeed the USA would not comprise of the lands that it currently holds. Then why did you initially pick this item from my list to disagree with?

The word 'genocide' - debating the use of the word is a deflection. There are many definitions of words. Let's not play linguistic prescriptivism. We both know what we refer to here. The mass ethnic cleansing of the natives by the soon-to-be USAns.

Also claiming the USA was not as bad as other countries is plain whataboutism and irrelvant to the point. We can debate that at another time if you like. My African history is pretty good. :)

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766138]Chomsky's about as biased a source as you can find, and he doesn't know any more than you or me about anything except linguistics.
[/QUOTE]Chomsky is one of the most knowledgable US historians of the 20th and 21st century. Read any book or formal document that he has written and you will see that each point he makes is spuuported by official documents. he doesn't just pull stuff out of his arse. He is a true USA patriot and should go down is hiistory as one of the greatest sons of the USA.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766138]That's over an hour long. I don't have time to watch it. Furthermore, Chomsky's about as biased a source as you can find, and he doesn't know any more than you or me about anything except linguistics.

I think I was probably wrong. The USA Invasion of Mexico in 1846 resulted in Mexico ceding California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming to the USA. That did contribute substantially to American wealth. As to all the other South American, Central American and Caribbean countries, I don't accept that invasion and exploitation by the USA had a significant effect on the USA's current wealth.[/QUOTE]Have you ever heard of the United Fruit Company and the Dulles brothers and Ike and the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1952 or 53? Just one obvious example. There is also the Monroe Doctrine which gives USA "rights" to the area. Bush 1 invaded Panama and kidnapped Noriega shows that we will do anything to maintain control. It was a totally illegal act. There's so much more too but the abuse started with the Conquest and Spain and Portugal's Colonial years. South America is very rich in natural resources including obviously Venezuela and its oil. China has been down there making friends for the last few years by building stadiums and other public projects and supplying new police cars as in Costa Rica. If it's not about profit, and it usually is, it is about controlling.

The mob controlled Cuba and its wealth. A few rich and most others poor. And guess what happened?

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766218]I don't see why you are disagreeing with me here. It seems we both agree that the extermination of the natives was an important step in the development of the USA and that if it hadn't taken place then the USA would not be what it is today. Indeed the USA would not comprise of the lands that it currently holds. Then why did you initially pick this item from my list to disagree with?

The word 'genocide' - debating the use of the word is a deflection. There are many definitions of words. Let's not play linguistic prescriptivism. We both know what we refer to here. The mass ethnic cleansing of the natives by the soon-to-be USAns.

Also claiming the USA was not as bad as other countries is plain whataboutism and irrelvant to the point. We can debate that at another time if you like. My African history is pretty good.[/QUOTE]The Americans at the time of Manifest Destiny were all recent immigrants from Europe of mostly Western WASP countries as was the same in Africa. You know, the former Colonial Powers who once ruled the world and where most problems today exist. The French were in Southeast Asia before USA. When I was in grade school it was called French Indo China! Great Britain in the Mideast and India / Pakistan. The USA is no angel but we are not alone or the first bad guys.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766136]
I quickly scanned your articles and they don't appear to offer any economic statistics that would back up your claim.
Cotton accounted for 5% of the USA Economy on the eve of the Civil War, and 87% of that cotton was exported.
[/QUOTE]There are many types of evidence, not just economic stats. The article I quoted is well referenced with well written background articles:
[URL]https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/americas-first-big-business-railroads-slavery[/URL]
[URL]https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/when-cotton-was-king/[/URL]
[URL]https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economics-of-the-civil-war/[/URL]

Cotton accounted for more than 50% of exports. It was this that brought much needed capital in to the country and fueld its early development.

Furthermore, the use of slaves allowed USA to clothe the world bcos it could produce cheaper. This fueled development and created a constant demand for import labour. The labour rates were higher than elsewhere in the world due to the use of slaves to do the grunt jobs. And this made the USA an attractive place to settle. And fuel further growth. Its all related.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766224]There are many types of evidence, not just economic stats. The article I quoted is well referenced with well written background articles:
[URL]https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/americas-first-big-business-railroads-slavery[/URL]
[URL]https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/when-cotton-was-king/[/URL]
[URL]https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economics-of-the-civil-war/[/URL]

Cotton accounted for more than 50% of exports. It was this that brought much needed capital in to the country and fueld its early development.

Furthermore, the use of slaves allowed USA to clothe the world bcos it could produce cheaper. This fueled development and created a constant demand for import labour. The labour rates were higher than elsewhere in the world due to the use of slaves to do the grunt jobs. And this made the USA an attractive place to settle. And fuel further growth. It’s all related.[/QUOTE]I wonder who brought all the slaves over and did they do it for profit? Hmmm. Let's ask the Dutch, they might know.

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2766229]I wonder who brought all the slaves over and did they do it for profit? Hmmm. Let's ask the Dutch, they might know.[/QUOTE]Not sure how aportioning blame jas anytihng to do with it. I am arguing it was an important factor. Doesn't matter who did it.

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2766222]The French were in Southeast Asia before USA. When I was in grade school it was called French Indo China! Great Britain in the Mideast and India / Pakistan. The USA is no angel but we are not alone or the first bad guys.[/QUOTE]Yes, right CL. I agree. But it is not relevant to the discussion. We are discussing reasons why the USA got wealthy, not allocating blame for it, nor discussing the morlaity of it all. Thats another discussion.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766245]Not sure how aportioning blame jas anytihng to do with it. I am arguing it was an important factor. Doesn't matter who did it.[/QUOTE]Just added it because everyone profited except the slaves in one way or another. What gets me is that slavery in South America was primarily for sugarcane and sugar / molasses.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766248]Yes, right CL. I agree. But it is not relevant to the discussion. We are discussing reasons why the USA got wealthy, not allocating blame for it, nor discussing the morlaity of it all. That's another discussion.[/QUOTE]Part of what I see was and is still in existence. It may sound idealistic but immigrants who come here, come for what they see as an opportunity for a better life. In their homeland they have to bust ass just to get by. They come here with the same work ethic and do more than get by. Many learn enough to start their own business. I live in an area that was very industrial and with many early to mid 1900's immigrants from Eastern Europe and that's what many did. Now the immigrants here are mostly Latin Americans who do the same. Some go back to the "old country" and live well on their pensions but most stay here as the now have kids and grandkids that they don't want to leave. I guess that South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are wealthy for similar reasons.

I was just responding to what seemed to me as a bash Americans for success. Also many entrepreneurs from all over the world come here. I ask many immigrants if they could make a decent living at home whether they would stay here or go home. Most would go home.

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2766229]I wonder who brought all the slaves over and did they do it for profit? Hmmm. Let's ask the Dutch, they might know.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766248]Yes, right CL. I agree. But it is not relevant to the discussion. We are discussing reasons why the USA got wealthy, not allocating blame for it, nor discussing the morlaity of it all. Thats another discussion.[/QUOTE]Well, we got here because I maintained that smaller government, as measured by government revenues or expenditures as a % of GDP, is correlated with higher GDP per capita in developed countries. I threw out the USA, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong and Ireland as examples. You zeroed in on the USA and provided a list of reasons, including slavery, why you believe the USA Is wealthier than other places. You can correct me if I'm wrong -- my memory is a little hazy on this, and I'm too lazy to go back and check.

As to slavery, yes, ChucoLoco is correct. Based on a quick internet search, the Dutch transported at least 500,000 Africans to the New World. In 1800, the population of Holland was about 2 million. So that's about one slave for every Dutch family. It's possible that the Netherlands is slightly more prosperous today than it would be otherwise because of slavery. Dutch slaveowners in Surinam, Curacao and Guyana made lots of money on plantations and shipped some of it back to Holland. While there were insurrections in the Dutch colonies, there was no Civil War in Holland proper, which would have, like the United States, wiped out more than all the wealth that was created through the institution of slavery.

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2766220]Have you ever heard of the United Fruit Company and the Dulles brothers and Ike and the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1952 or 53? Just one obvious example. There is also the Monroe Doctrine which gives USA "rights" to the area. Bush 1 invaded Panama and kidnapped Noriega shows that we will do anything to maintain control. It was a totally illegal act. There's so much more too but the abuse started with the Conquest and Spain and Portugal's Colonial years. South America is very rich in natural resources including obviously Venezuela and its oil. China has been down there making friends for the last few years by building stadiums and other public projects and supplying new police cars as in Costa Rica. If it's not about profit, and it usually is, it is about controlling.

The mob controlled Cuba and its wealth. A few rich and most others poor. And guess what happened?[/QUOTE]I don't have an argument with what you're saying. I'm not a fan of American imperialism. I just don't believe any of that had a significant effect on the wealth of the USA today. Please note that American investment in Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba, among other places, was expropriated. It's possible the Americans ended up losing more money in those countries than they made. And the amount the USA made off of all of Latin America, sans Mexico, is a drop in the bucket compared to size of the current USA Economy.

With respect to Mexico, the descendants of the people living in places like California in 1846, before the Mexican American war, are more prosperous than they would be if Mexico hadn't ceded the land to the USA. And Mexico is more prosperous than it would be otherwise because of trade with and investment by Americans.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766319]I don't have an argument with what you're saying. I'm not a fan of American imperialism. I just don't believe any of that had a significant effect on the wealth of the USA today. Please note that American investment in Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba, among other places, was expropriated. It's possible the Americans ended up losing more money in those countries than they made. And the amount the USA made off of all of Latin America, sans Mexico, is a drop in the bucket compared to size of the current USA Economy.

With respect to Mexico, the descendants of the people living in places like California in 1846, before the Mexican American war, are more prosperous than they would be if Mexico hadn't ceded the land to the USA. And Mexico is more prosperous than it would be otherwise because of trade with and investment by Americans.[/QUOTE]Good points. I just wish that I was smarter and made more money probably would have been better self employed but who knows. Selling drugs started when I had just started college and missed some opportunities but too many guys ended up in prison or died young for different reasons so no loss really. I'm fine on my pensions and SS but am not rich. Interesting discussion though.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766224]There are many types of evidence, not just economic stats. The article I quoted is well referenced with well written background articles:
[URL]https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/americas-first-big-business-railroads-slavery[/URL]
[URL]https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/when-cotton-was-king/[/URL]
[URL]https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economics-of-the-civil-war/[/URL]

Cotton accounted for more than 50% of exports. It was this that brought much needed capital in to the country and fueld its early development.

Furthermore, the use of slaves allowed USA to clothe the world bcos it could produce cheaper. This fueled development and created a constant demand for import labour. The labour rates were higher than elsewhere in the world due to the use of slaves to do the grunt jobs. And this made the USA an attractive place to settle. And fuel further growth. Its all related.[/QUOTE]The population of the USA at the time of the Civil War was as follows.

Union: 18.5 million.

Confederacy: 5. 5 million free men.

Enslaved: 3. 5 million.

[URL]https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm[/URL]

From your third source, income per person in the North (Union) was $150/year. In the South it was $135 year, and of that $135, and of that $135, 25.9%, or $35 per free white, was derived from the earnings of slaves.

Put the numbers together, and you'll see that the researchers would attribute about 5.5% of USA Income to slaves.

Again, as I noted before, there was a long term drop in USA GDP of 18% attributable to the Civil War. The costs of the Civil War to the USA Economy were greater than the value of slavery to the economy.

Your third source also estimates the costs of the Civil War to be $10.4 billion, and the value of slaves at the time of the start of the war to be about $3.3 billion.

Please also note from your source.

"Whatever the effects of the war on industrial growth, economic historians agree that the war had a profound effect on the South. The destruction of slavery meant that the entire Southern economy had to be rebuilt. This turned out to be a monumental task; far larger than anyone at the time imagined. As noted above in the discussion of the indirect costs of the war, Southerners bore a disproportionate share of those costs and the burden persisted long after the war had ended. The failure of the postbellum Southern economy to recover has spawned a huge literature that goes well beyond the effects of the war.

By the end of the century, Southern per capita income had fallen to roughly two-thirds the national level, and the South was locked in a cycle of poverty that lasted well into the twentieth century."

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766248]Yes, right CL. I agree. But it is not relevant to the discussion. We are discussing reasons why the USA got wealthy, not allocating blame for it, nor discussing the morlaity of it all. Thats another discussion.[/QUOTE]Without a doubt, slavery helped the United States build wealth from its days as a colony up until the end of the Civil War. After that, I am not educated enough on the topic to say with certainty that it helped create wealth within the United States into the 20th Century.

Here are some things to consider.

1. All the money spent on former slaves to help them transition into society as full fledged citizens. A whole Federal organization known as the "Freedman's Bureau" was started to achieve this goal. Millions of former slaves suddenly needed housing, food, education, and career training. This was a monumental task considering the economic and human cost of the Civil War. The USA had to station soldiers in the South until 1877 to protect former slaves and keep the South from rebelling again which cost another fortune. The USA also had to rebuild the infrastructure of the South because it had been completely decimated during the end of the War as part of a "scorched Earth policy" adopted by the North in order to break the will of the Confederates and force them to surrender. It couldn't have been cheap to rebuild Atlanta and all those towns they burned, buildings they cannoned, and railroads they tore up.

2. All the money spent on former slaves and their descendants. As we all known, the Jim Crow laws in the South prevented former slaves and their descendants from ever gaining economic success on par with other racial groups. These laws were designed to impoverish southern African Americans. Basically, it kept a significantly larger percentage of African Americans economically dependent upon the state when compared to other racial groups. Yes, this enriched whites by creating a class of people whose only chance for work was low paying jobs, but it also cost the Government a lot of money in the form of well-fare to make sure their basic needs were met.

All things considered, it would have absolutely been much harder to settle the United States during its days a Colony and its' early history without slavery. The USA was built on the backs of slaves and indentured servants. That being said, I don't think you can attribute the modern wealth of the United States to slavery. Look at Brazil. It had far more slaves than the USA and today it is on par with other nations in Latin America, not the Western Nations of Europe. Nations can crumble quite quickly, just look at the German Empire from WW1, or the fall of the Soviet Union. A nation can fall in as little as a generation, or even quicker in times of war. Countries do not magically become rich and successful, it is due to a multitude of factors- the most important being geography, abundance of natural resources, and work ethic and ingenuity of its' citizens.

One thing I can say for sure, is that the United States is no accident and the success of the Nation is by no means guaranteed.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766331]

Again, as I noted before, there was a long term drop in USA GDP of 18% attributable to the Civil War. The costs of the Civil War to the USA Economy were greater than the value of slavery to the economy.

Your third source also estimates the costs of the Civil War to be $10.4 billion, and the value of slaves at the time of the start of the war to be about $3.3 billion.
[/QUOTE]Although you raise some interesting point Tiny, I think you are making some giant strides in illogic. You are comparing apples and oranges, and adding 2+2 to =5.

Sure, GDP always goes down during war. But it nearly always recovers. Take UK after WW2. I dunno by how much WW2 damaged UK GDP, but it would have been huge. By your logic, the UK should have been taken back to being a 3rd world country because the war wiped out the benefits of the industrial revolution. Obviously not, the 'damage had already been done', meaning the UK had already benefited from its industrial past and had become a developed country. No amount of war was going to prevent it from becoming a leading power again. In the same way, USA had benefited from slave economics that fired its development in to being one of the world's leading economies at that time. The war did not take that away.

Also, who pays for the war? The weak suffer what they must – the south mostly paid for it and it helped lay the economic landscape that we see today – mostly more affluent north and poorer south. The war did not stop the rich from being rich.

You also compare an evaluation of the cost of the war to a market value of slaves – false equivalency. The value of the slaves in an estimate of their economic worth going forward (to the potential buyer) . It has no relation to the value that past slaves had provided to owners and the economy.

You also claim that the war would not have happened if there had been no slave trade. I don't believe that claim stands – the final national election before war led to Rep Abraham Lincoln being elected without a single electoral vote from the south (my, how times have changed). The south felt they had no influence in the running of their country and wanted secession. I believe those same sentiments would have led to war anyway – you can see it happening again now. War may have happened regardless, either then or later. I don't think it is clear cut. Regardless, even if I give you this last point, my other points above stand on their own merit.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2766363]Without a doubt, slavery helped the United States build wealth from its days as a colony up until the end of the Civil War.
The USA was built on the backs of slaves and indentured servants. That being said, I don't think you can attribute the modern wealth of the United States to slavery.[/QUOTE]Right. Agreed. I am not arguing that it is the only reason. I put fwd 10 reasons, and slaverry was one of them. No doubt I missed some other good reasons from my 5 minute list. .

In no way is it a unique story. Likewise the industrial revulotion in UK and Europe was fired by child labour, in sweatshops, mines, and cotton mills. In South Africa, the country was transformed in to the richest country in the world (for white people) by the use of rightless blacks in the gold and diamond mines and indentured Indian labour in the sugar plantations. Indeed, not only did the blacks have no rights, they were also forced to work in incredibaly dangerous conditions, where thousands died.

Now you guys know why I try to limit my American Politics references to "in the past 100 years", within a reasonable timeframe where the topic, you know, matters.

And even then some who hated the irrefutable data durung that timeframe claimed I was talking about ancient irrelevant history! LOL.

No problem. It's all good.

Hey, if I were a winger and after that possibly gloat-worthy "Red Tsunami" diminished to barely a Red Tinkle, and only that much because Repubs got to redraw district lines to create a handful of new ridiculously gerrymandered Repub House seat "wins", I'd want to change the subject ASAP too.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766513]Although you raise some interesting point Tiny, I think you are making some giant strides in illogic. You are comparing apples and oranges, and adding 2+2 to =5.

Sure, GDP always goes down during war. But it nearly always recovers. Take UK after WW2. I dunno by how much WW2 damaged UK GDP, but it would have been huge. By your logic, the UK should have been taken back to being a 3rd world country because the war wiped out the benefits of the industrial revolution. Obviously not, the 'damage had already been done', meaning the UK had already benefited from its industrial past and had become a developed country. No amount of war was going to prevent it from becoming a leading power again. In the same way, USA had benefited from slave economics that fired its development in to being one of the world's leading economies at that time. The war did not take that away.

Also, who pays for the war? The weak suffer what they must the south mostly paid for it and it helped lay the economic landscape that we see today mostly more affluent north and poorer south. The war did not stop the rich from being rich..[/QUOTE]Your claim that "GDP always goes down during war. " certainly does not apply to the US. But the folks who wrote the following paper are economists, so what do they know. [URL]https://www.economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Economic-Consequences-of-War-on-US-Economy_0.pdf[/URL].

And the fact that Lincoln received no votes from the South has absolutely no bearing on which political party Lincoln belonged to as you intimate. It is well known (or should be) that the Republican party during the 1860's was very liberal. In fact, they even advocated for a strong federal government! It wasn't until the 1960's that the parties essentially switched positions. The South, which had long been a bastion of Democrats became Republican during the Civil Rights movement. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republican_Party_[/URL](United_States) and [URL]https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-republican-party-to-1865.html[/URL].

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2766669]Now you guys know why I try to limit my American Politics references to "in the past 100 years", within a reasonable timeframe where the topic, you know, matters.

And even then some who hated the irrefutable data durung that timeframe claimed I was talking about ancient irrelevant history! LOL.

No problem. It's all good.

Hey, if I were a winger and after that possibly gloat-worthy "Red Tsunami" diminished to barely a Red Tinkle, and only that much because Repubs got to redraw district lines to create a handful of new ridiculously gerrymandered Repub House seat "wins", I'd want to change the subject ASAP too.[/QUOTE]Maryland (blue state) may have the most ridiculously gerrymandered Congressional districts in the USA. New Mexico (blue state) may be second, and Illinois (blue state) and California (blue state) deserve honorable mentions. New York this year would be way up there too if Democrat controlled courts hadn't forced the state to redraw the districts.

Basically both sides do it, gerrymandering.

This year, Republicans won the total popular vote in all Congressional districts by 51% to 47%. The % of actual House seats won by Republicans was 51%, compared to 49% for Democrats, so if anything it would appear the Democrat gerrymanders worked out a tiny bit better than the Republican gerrymanders this year.

The reason I quit arguing with you about your so called "irrefutable data" is because we're going through the same old stuff, over and over. You're not going to convince me and I'm not going to convince you. And if for some reason I do, you'll probably cry, like the Mormon missionary who debated the foundations of his religion with me 20 some odd years ago. You're like a shaman who has determined that sacrifice of virgins is correlated with better harvests. He may be right as a result of coincidence, but it's not the sacrifice of the virgins that caused the good harvests.

I'll give Roosevelt and the Democrats credit for trying everything and the kitchen sink to get us out of a depression. But other than that, other conditions, like improvements in technology, globalization, demographic changes, the business cycle, what's going on in the rest of the world, wars (which mostly started during Democratic administrations), Congress, and a pandemic had much more influence on the state of the economy than which party the president belonged to.

I do like you Tooms, honestly. I know you live more on the edge than most of us. But as to this red winger stuff, please realize that cunnilingus performed during a woman's period is a great way to get Hepatitis C, especially if you've got open sores in your mouth.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2766513]Although you raise some interesting point Tiny, I think you are making some giant strides in illogic. You are comparing apples and oranges, and adding 2+2 to =5.

Sure, GDP always goes down during war. But it nearly always recovers. Take UK after WW2. I dunno by how much WW2 damaged UK GDP, but it would have been huge. By your logic, the UK should have been taken back to being a 3rd world country because the war wiped out the benefits of the industrial revolution. Obviously not, the 'damage had already been done', meaning the UK had already benefited from its industrial past and had become a developed country. No amount of war was going to prevent it from becoming a leading power again. In the same way, USA had benefited from slave economics that fired its development in to being one of the world's leading economies at that time. The war did not take that away.

Also, who pays for the war? The weak suffer what they must the south mostly paid for it and it helped lay the economic landscape that we see today mostly more affluent north and poorer south. The war did not stop the rich from being rich.

You also compare an evaluation of the cost of the war to a market value of slaves false equivalency. The value of the slaves in an estimate of their economic worth going forward (to the potential buyer) . It has no relation to the value that past slaves had provided to owners and the economy.

You also claim that the war would not have happened if there had been no slave trade. I don't believe that claim stands the final national election before war led to Rep Abraham Lincoln being elected without a single electoral vote from the south (my, how times have changed). The south felt they had no influence in the running of their country and wanted secession. I believe those same sentiments would have led to war anyway you can see it happening again now. War may have happened regardless, either then or later. I don't think it is clear cut. Regardless, even if I give you this last point, my other points above stand on their own merit.[/QUOTE]I applaud you for bringing up some thought provoking points. I kind of got into the slavery issue you brought up, and did some reading.

I did a literature search on the effect of slavery on present day economies, and you're just plain wrong. In fact, reality is the opposite of what you think it is.

Engerman and Sokoloff wrote a series of papers dealing with or touching on the effect of slavery and subjugation of indigenous people on the development of economies in the Americas. They attribute the relative success of the USA and Canada versus other countries to less inequality in the northern countries, mainly because the Americans and Canadians subjugated far FEWER Africans and Native Americans than other countries. The bad guys in their narrative are the Portuguese, French and Dutch, who brought lots of slaves to the New World, and the Spanish, who wiped out and effectively enslaved the native population in places like Mexico and Peru. Engerman and Sokoloff believe the greater inequality persisted for centuries, and resulted in countries that are poorer today than they would be otherwise. Please note that this is the opposite of what you're espousing. While you can argue about whether this persistent inequality caused countries to be poorer (as Nathan Nunn does, see below), it's clear that slavery and massive subjugation of indigenous people is correlated with LOWER GDP. In other words, if anything, slavery and subjugation of Indians have caused the GDP of the USA to be lower than it would be otherwise.

Nathan Nunn, a Harvard economist, is an expert on the effects of slavery on economies in Africa and the New World. In this paper, he shows a startling relationship between GDP and the percentage of the population that was enslaved:

[URL]https://scholar.harvard.edu/nunn/publications/slavery-inequality-and-economic-development-americas-examination-engerman-sokolof[/URL]

You'll need to download the .pdf file and go to Figure 2 on page 8. The United States had the fewest slaves as a % of the population and had the highest GDP per capita in 2000. Haiti had the highest % slaves and had the lowest GDP in the year 2000.

Nunn, who took a harder look at the data than Engerman and Sokoloff, believes that slavery had a long term effect on inequality as well as income. However, he does not believe that the initial inequality resulting from slavery has had an effect on later economic development. So what is the reason? He doesn't really know, but has a couple of ideas described on page 34 of the .pdf.

One other point, the USA had a Civil War, fought over the issue of slavery. Most other countries in the New World did not. Your point that GDP recovers after a war is not true for the South. It was still suffering the effects of Reconstruction into at least the mid 20th century.

I'd draw your attention again to Figure 1 in the following. Ten years after the Civil War, USA GDP was still 18% lower than it would have been otherwise:

[URL]https://www.theigc.org/reader/the-cost-of-violence-estimating-the-economic-impact-of-conflict/preventing-violent-conflict-should-be-a-key-priority-for-development-and-growth-policy/19166-2/#text=Even%20 six%20 years%20 after%20 the, makes%20 civil%20 war%20 so%20 costly.[/URL]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2766826]Your claim that "GDP always goes down during war. " certainly does not apply to the US. But the folks who wrote the following paper are economists, so what do they know. [URL]https://www.economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-Economic-Consequences-of-War-on-US-Economy_0.pdf[/URL].

And the fact that Lincoln received no votes from the South has absolutely no bearing on which political party Lincoln belonged to as you intimate. It is well known (or should be) that the Republican party during the 1860's was very liberal. In fact, they even advocated for a strong federal government! It wasn't until the 1960's that the parties essentially switched positions. The South, which had long been a bastion of Democrats became Republican during the Civil Rights movement. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republican_Party_[/URL](United_States) and [URL]https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-republican-party-to-1865.html[/URL].[/QUOTE]Great link! Now I understand. Wars boost GDP growth.

So here are the wars and the presidents who started them:

World War I - Woodrow Wilson, Democrat.

World War II - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat.

Korean War and Cold War - Harry Truman, Democrat.

Vietnam War - Lyndon Baines Johnson, Democrat.

The War on Terror (Iraq / Afghanistan) - George W. Bush, Republican.

I'd add Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War too, however I'm not sure what party he belonged to. The history books say "Republican", but posters here are saying he was really a Liberal Democrat. Not one of those Democrats who enslaved people, but rather a Truly Enlightened Democrat. I'm just not sure what to do with him.

I've only had a chance to read the executive summary so far, but this explains why Tooms is right about Democratic Party presidents and higher GDP growth. GDP growth is higher under Democrats because they start wars!

I guess George Bush, the only Republican on the list, was trying to take a lesson from the Democratic Masters of Warfare, but it just didn't work out. Bill Clinton, who was one crafty devil, stopped regulating financial markets so that the economy would implode under Bush whether or not he started a war.

Thanks for clearing this up!

Before someone starts to argue with me, this post is 100% satirical. One hundred percent. And it's not directed to you PVMonger, except the part about Lincoln being a Liberal. Honestly, good links, I'm going to come back to them.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766934]Great link! Now I understand. Wars boost GDP growth.

So here are the wars and the presidents who started them:

World War I - Woodrow Wilson, Democrat.

World War II - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat.

Korean War and Cold War - Harry Truman, Democrat.

Vietnam War - Lyndon Baines Johnson, Democrat.

The War on Terror (Iraq / Afghanistan) - George W. Bush, Republican.

I'd add Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War too, however I'm not sure what party he belonged to. The history books say "Republican", but posters here are saying he was really a Liberal Democrat. Not one of those Democrats who enslaved people, but rather a Truly Enlightened Democrat. I'm just not sure what to do with him..[/QUOTE][QUOTE]So here are the wars and the presidents who started them:[/QUOTE]World War I. Wilson / USA joined the war. Nobody in the USA "started" WW I.

World War II. Japan attacked USA military base in Hawaii, Germany declared War against the USA, both already waging war in the Pacific and in Europe. Nobody in the USA "started" WW II.

Korean War and Cold War. USA did take a side. But nobody in the USA "started" those.

Vietnam War. The French were at war with North Vietnam. They were driven out. Nobody in the USA "started" that war. Eisenhower, a Republican, replaced the retreating French with USA military personnel in 1954. He didn't have to. But he spent the rest of his presidency making a case for our increasing responsibility to prevent the "Domino Theory", his chosen term, of South East Asian nations falling to Chinese Communist rule one by one, totally committing the USA militarily to the war by word, deed, treaty and action.

At most, LBJ enacted a "surge" in Eisenhower's total military commitment in order to hopefully put an end to the lingering quagmire we were stuck in thanks to Eisenhower's years' long words, deeds, treaty and action all through the previous Happy Days years.

The War on Terror (Iraq / Afghanistan) - George W. Bush, Republican. Yep. I'm guessing the reason that was the only one you got sorta kinda right is because you were a relatively awake and alert adult at the start of it and it did not require any reading and research. Just a guess though.

Now, one could argue the 9/11 Attack "started" a war with somebody. However, it shouldn't have been with Iraq and only tangentially with Afghanistan. It was GW Bush's idiocy, vengeance for his dad's blunder re sleeping through Hussein asking if it was ok with us if he invaded to annex Kuwait and hundreds of lies that plunged us into those quagmire wars. Oh, and yep, he was a Republican.

Tiny12:

[QUOTE]Before someone starts to argue with me, this post is 100% satirical. One hundred percent. And it's not directed to you PVMonger, except the part about Lincoln being a Liberal. Honestly, good links, I'm going to come back to them.[/QUOTE]I argued with the parts about who "started" some of the wars you cited because, although you might see it as 100% satirical, what you wrote is routinely repeated in Mainstream Media as though it were true.

But I didn't argue with the part about Lincoln because it did seem satirical. It isn't common for Repubs or their election supporting Bothsiders in Mainstream Media to assert that Lincoln was not a Repub even though there is no way a person with his record could win the Repub Party's nomination.

However, after every one of these Great Repub Economic Disasters, the Repub Party does swing into action disavowing that the Repub steward of it was a "real conservative" or a "real Republican."

They actually tried to float that bit about Reagan, Bush2 and Trump when their classic Repub economic agenda, policies and results crashed horribly. So the idea that they would disavow Lincoln for what most of them today would likely see as his "Emancipation Proclamation Disaster" and all that isn't as outlandish or obviously satirical as some might think.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766881]Maryland (blue state) may have the most ridiculously gerrymandered Congressional districts in the USA. New Mexico (blue state) may be second, and Illinois (blue state) and California (blue state) deserve honorable mentions. New York this year would be way up there too if Democrat controlled courts hadn't forced the state to redraw the districts.

Basically both sides do it, gerrymandering.

This year, Republicans won the total popular vote in all Congressional districts by 51% to 47%. The % of actual House seats won by Republicans was 51%, compared to 49% for Democrats, so if anything it would appear the Democrat gerrymanders worked out a tiny bit better than the Republican gerrymanders this year.

The reason I quit arguing with you about your so called "irrefutable data" is because we're going through the same old stuff, over and over. You're not going to convince me and I'm not going to convince you. And if for some reason I do, you'll probably cry, like the Mormon missionary who debated the foundations of his religion with me 20 some odd years ago. You're like a shaman who has determined that sacrifice of virgins is correlated with better harvests. He may be right as a result of coincidence, but it's not the sacrifice of the virgins that caused the good harvests.

I'll give Roosevelt and the Democrats credit for trying everything and the kitchen sink to get us out of a depression. But other than that, other conditions, like improvements in technology, globalization, demographic changes, the business cycle, what's going on in the rest of the world, wars (which mostly started during Democratic administrations), Congress, and a pandemic had much more influence on the state of the economy than which party the president belonged to.

I do like you Tooms, honestly. I know you live more on the edge than most of us. But as to this red winger stuff, please realize that cunnilingus performed during a woman's period is a great way to get Hepatitis C, especially if you've got open sores in your mouth.[/QUOTE]Repubs usually turn out more heavily in midterm elections. But ballots and votes are still being counted in a very big and populace state. Do you have a link for your 51% to 47% votes and such. I mean, there was a moment when Trump claimed he was the winner and we should stop counting votes because, as planned by Repub state legislatures, they hadn't counted all the likely Dem mail-in ballots.

And there was that approximate 3,000,000 more votes for Hillary by the time all the ballots and votes were counted in California.

Just sayin'.

So you think it has just been a wild coincidence and maybe we're just not paying enough attention to every niggly piddly incidental detail for every legislative and stewardship decision over the past 100 years that Dems produced and presided over every economic boom time, historic jobs creation, none of the Great Recessions and Massive Job Losses while Repubs produced and presided over every Great Depression, Great Recession, Massive Job Loss and none of the boom times and historic job gains.

And that perhaps Repubs were just too busy producing their horrific economic results to be bothered with proposing, fighting for and passing One. Single. Positive. Meaningful. And Now Revered legislation at any time over the past 100 years whenever they controlled the White House, The House and the Senate.

Oh, and that neither you nor anyone else can name ANY political party other than the Dems who have produced and presided over the above mentioned positive economic results and ALL, not some, ALL of the above described legislation whenever they controlled the Big Three.

Yet you claim I am some blindly faithful, irrational "blue" partisan who refuses to acknowledge reality or the hidden data or the wisdom of voting Repub or the wisdom of helping Repubs win by Bothsiding or Neithersiding it so they can get in there and produce the only ultimate results they have managed to produce for at least 100 years over and over and over again.

LOL. Ok. Whatever soothes your Blindly Faithful Partisan Economic Disaster soul.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766934]Great link! Now I understand. Wars boost GDP growth.
[/QUOTE]I have said it before that I think GDP is a terrible metric for anything other than GDP. Has nothing to do w general prosperity or happiness. Arms production.

I noticed in my time here that USAns tend to have a hyperfixation with economic stats. As if the solutions to life lie within. Success and happiness are not found in statisitcs. If you were to ask me if my parents have had a big influence upon me, I wouldn't check the amount of money they have spent on me and make a decisiion.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766934]Great link! Now I understand. Wars boost GDP growth.

So here are the wars and the presidents who started them:

World War I - Woodrow Wilson, Democrat.

World War II - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat.

Korean War and Cold War - Harry Truman, Democrat.

Vietnam War - Lyndon Baines Johnson, Democrat.

The War on Terror (Iraq / Afghanistan) - George W. Bush, Republican.

I'd add Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War too, however I'm not sure what party he belonged to. The history books say "Republican", but posters here are saying he was really a Liberal Democrat. Not one of those Democrats who enslaved people, but rather a Truly Enlightened Democrat. I'm just not sure what to do with him.

I've only had a chance to read the executive summary so far, but this explains why Tooms is right about Democratic Party presidents and higher GDP growth. GDP growth is higher under Democrats because they start wars!.[/QUOTE]Wilson started WWI? I could have sworn that it was Austria after Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.

Roosevelt started WWII? I could have sworn that it was Hitler with a strong second to Tojo.

Truman started the Korean war? I could have sworn that it was Kim il Suck.

LBJ started the Vietnam war? I could have sworn that it was Uncle Ho.

You obviously have no clue about Republicans or Democrats. If you knew anything at all, nobody (at least not me) said that Lincoln was a liberal Democrat. The Republican party in the 1860's was very liberal. "Upon its founding, it supported classical liberalism and economic reform while opposing the expansion of slavery. " [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_[/URL](United_States).

Please don't fall into the same trap as every member of the Moron Brigade does. That trap is "Republicans opposed slavery in 1860 and Democrats supported it in 1860 so that means that Democrats still support slavery."

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766881]Maryland (blue state) may have the most ridiculously gerrymandered Congressional districts in the USA. New Mexico (blue state) may be second, and Illinois (blue state) and California (blue state) deserve honorable mentions. New York this year would be way up there too if Democrat controlled courts hadn't forced the state to redraw the districts.

Basically both sides do it, gerrymandering.[/QUOTE]While technically true, the Democrats are resorting to it mostly in response to insane Republican gerrymandering, which has been especially aggressive in the last decade.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2766881]Maryland (blue state) may have the most ridiculously gerrymandered Congressional districts in the USA. New Mexico (blue state) may be second, and Illinois (blue state) and California (blue state) deserve honorable mentions. New York this year would be way up there too if Democrat controlled courts hadn't forced the state to redraw the districts.

Basically both sides do it, gerrymandering.

This year, Republicans won the total popular vote in all Congressional districts by 51% to 47%. The % of actual House seats won by Republicans was 51%, compared to 49% for Democrats, so if anything it would appear the Democrat gerrymanders worked out a tiny bit better than the Republican gerrymanders this year.
....
I do like you Tooms, honestly. I know you live more on the edge than most of us. But as to this red winger stuff, please realize that cunnilingus performed during a woman's period is a great way to get Hepatitis C, especially if you've got open sores in your mouth.[/QUOTE]Actually, if anything like that 51% to 47% result holds after all the ballots and votes are counted, I have and would still argue that was the result of the typically pro Repub Mainstream Media, Bill Maher and your Bothsider / Neithersider efforts along with the entire Repub Party's efforts since 2020 to suppress, obstruct, disenfranchise, hinder and thwart likely Dem votes. Which, along with their extreme gerrymandering rig, appeared to be the only overriding 2022 election campaign strategy.

Yes, Bothsides gerrymander when they can. Without exploiting that built-in rigging system, the Repubs would not have squeezed out a tiny handful of House seats gains. However, as we all know, that isn't the only rigging Repubs employed to reduce the number and percentage of Dem votes this time around in order to squeeze out that Red Tinkle:

[B]Explainer: Republicans push to restrict mail-in voting ahead of U.S. November midterms[/B]

[URL]https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republicans-push-restrict-mail-in-voting-ahead-us-november-midterms-2022-09-09/[/URL]

[QUOTE]Sept 9 (Reuters) - The Republican Party has pushed to enact new curbs on mail-in voting, which surged in the 2020 presidential election and fueled former President Donald Trump's false claims that he was robbed of victory by widespread voter fraud.

Citing security concerns, 18 states passed new legal limits on mail-in voting in the months after the election, from extra identification requirements to shortening the window in which mail ballots can be requested or cast.[/QUOTE][B]Republicans sue to disqualify thousands of mail ballots in swing states.
The lawsuits coincide with a systemic effort by GOP leaders to persuade voters to cast ballots in person, not absentee[/B]

[URL]https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/07/gop-sues-reject-mail-ballots/[/URL]

[QUOTE]Republican officials and candidates in at least three battleground states are pushing to disqualify thousands of mail ballots after urging their own supporters to vote on Election Day, in what critics are calling a concerted attempt at partisan voter suppression.[/QUOTE][B]After voters embraced mail ballots, GOP states tighten rules[/B]

[URL]https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-voting-rights-election-2020-2caf9b85bec73c807ecea15775f6da63[/URL]

[QUOTE]A monthslong campaign by the Republican Party, fueled in part by the false narrative of widespread fraud in last years presidential election, has led to a wave of new voting laws that will tighten access to the ballot for millions of Americans.

The restrictions especially target voting methods that have been rising in popularity across the country, erecting hurdles to mail balloting and early voting that saw explosive growth during the pandemic. More than 40% of all voters last fall cast mail ballots, a record.

Texas is the latest state to crack down, after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill Tuesday taking aim at Democratic-leaning counties that have sought to expand access to the ballot.

Regardless of motives, these bills hurt voters, said Isabel Longoria, the election administrator of Harris County, which includes Houston. Voters are going to feel this the next time they go vote, and thats what Im most worried about.[/QUOTE][B]Now I'm curious. Do you and other Bothsiders/Neithersiders have any examples of party-wide efforts by the Dems to make it more difficult for likely Repub voters or anyone else to submit their ballots, to cast their votes, to have their votes count, to suppress, obstruct, disenfranchise, hinder and thwart likely Repub votes or to reduce legal voting anywhere in the country as the Repubs have with the Dems?[/B]

And, Tiny, thank your for your safe cunnilingus tips. I appreciate that. Luckily it has been many years since I had an open sore in my mouth or damn near anywhere else within kissing, licking, sucking or fucking distance on my body for any reason and would tend to refrain from DATY or sex in general if I had one. On that topic, I had a splendid shaved pussy DATY experience last night with a lovely face, very hot body, 20-something year old Nana Plaza go-go girl, followed by her treating me to one of the better BBBJ+CIM+swallow experiences I've had in a while. I loved it when she smiled and said, "I have your babies in my tummy now" after swallowing my cum. But not really. I've had a vasectomy. There is nothing in her tummy that could make a baby. Still, very cute.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2766944]World War I. Wilson / USA joined the war. Nobody in the USA "started" WW I.

World War II. Japan attacked USA military base in Hawaii, Germany declared War against the USA, both already waging war in the Pacific and in Europe. Nobody in the USA "started" WW II.

Korean War and Cold War. USA did take a side. But nobody in the USA "started" those.

Vietnam War. The French were at war with North Vietnam. They were driven out. Nobody in the USA "started" that war. Eisenhower, a Republican, replaced the retreating French with USA military personnel in 1954. He didn't have to. But he spent the rest of his presidency making a case for our increasing responsibility to prevent the "Domino Theory", his chosen term, of South East Asian nations falling to Chinese Communist rule one by one, totally committing the USA militarily to the war by word, deed, treaty and action.

At most, LBJ enacted a "surge" in Eisenhower's total military commitment in order to hopefully put an end to the lingering quagmire we were stuck in thanks to Eisenhower's years' long words, deeds, treaty and action all through the previous Happy Days years.

The War on Terror (Iraq / Afghanistan) - George W. Bush, Republican. Yep. I'm guessing the reason that was the only one you got sorta kinda right is because you were a relatively awake and alert adult at the start of it and it did not require any reading and research. Just a guess though.

Now, one could argue the 9/11 Attack "started" a war with somebody. However, it shouldn't have been with Iraq and only tangentially with Afghanistan. It was GW Bush's idiocy, vengeance for his dad's blunder re sleeping through Hussein asking if it was ok with us if he invaded to annex Kuwait and hundreds of lies that plunged us into those quagmire wars. Oh, and yep, he was a Republican.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2767086]Wilson started WWI? I could have sworn that it was Austria after Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.

Roosevelt started WWII? I could have sworn that it was Hitler with a strong second to Tojo.

Truman started the Korean war? I could have sworn that it was Kim il Suck.

LBJ started the Vietnam war? I could have sworn that it was Uncle Ho.

You obviously have no clue about Republicans or Democrats. If you knew anything at all, nobody (at least not me) said that Lincoln was a liberal Democrat. The Republican party in the 1860's was very liberal. "Upon its founding, it supported classical liberalism and economic reform while opposing the expansion of slavery. " [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_[/URL](United_States).
[/QUOTE]No, Democrats started every darn one of those wars, except for the War on Terror. Every time a Democratic President's popularity tanks he starts thinking, "What can I do to make sure I can win the next election? Hmmm. I'll start a war!" Not only does the nation pull together and support our president, but a good war turbocharges the economy and provides lots of jobs! You've got your defense jobs and you got your cannon fodder. There's no better way to create a lot of good jobs than to start a war!

Now John F. Kennedy was particularly shrewd. First he hyped the USA Nukes in Turkey so the Soviets would take notice. And then when they retaliated by putting nukes in Cuba, not only did he improve his approval rating by standing up to the Ruskies, but he cemented his place in history! George W. Bush tried to follow in his footsteps with the whole weapons of mass destruction thing. Yeah he did win the next election. But nobody likes him anymore. He should have known. Every time you try to beat a Democrat at his own game, you f*ck yourself!

Well, anyway, it usually takes a Republican to end a Democrat War. Eisenhower and Nixon did with the Korean and Vietnam wars. And Reagan did with the Cold War. Trump had us well on the way to getting out of Afghanistan before Biden and Venezuela managed to steal the election from him with those Dominion voting machines.

Now Biden, he's a Democrat of a different breed. I've got to give him credit for not starting any wars. Yet. He's come up with a better idea! He's America's Sugar Daddy! America's Santa Claus! Bully for Biden!

[B]Including the American Rescue Plan, an infrastructure bill, last years omnibus, a veterans fund, food-stamp and healthcare increases, semiconductor subsidies, the Inflation Reduction Act, and student-loan forgiveness, Democrats have added close to $5 trillion in new spending in two years.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-want-one-last-lame-duck-spending-blowout-congress-republicans-11669847552[/B]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2767086]You obviously have no clue about Republicans or Democrats. If you knew anything at all, nobody (at least not me) said that Lincoln was a liberal Democrat. The Republican party in the 1860's was very liberal. "Upon its founding, it supported classical liberalism and economic reform while opposing the expansion of slavery. " [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_[/URL](United_States).[/QUOTE]Apologies. I'm the poster boy for classical liberalism. I'm not very knowledgeable about Abraham Lincoln. But if he was a classical liberal, he was all right!

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2766993] Do you have a link for your 51% to 47% votes and such.[/QUOTE]Google "House Popular Vote. " You'll see a link on aei.org that says Republicans got 51% of the popular vote to Democrats' 47%. I assumed 222 Republican and 213 Democrat seats to get the 2% margin for the Republicans in the House.

That link though was from November 18.

If you do what I told you to do with Google, the first link will be to the Cook Political Report, which right now shows Republicans with a 2. 9% margin in the popular vote and a 1. 6% margin in House seats, with two seats undecided.

I picked the aei.org numbers because they were staring me straight in the face and I didn't have to do any math.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2767086]Wilson started WWI? I could have sworn that it was Austria after Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.

Roosevelt started WWII? I could have sworn that it was Hitler with a strong second to Tojo.

Truman started the Korean war? I could have sworn that it was Kim il Suck.

LBJ started the Vietnam war? I could have sworn that it was Uncle Ho.

You obviously have no clue about Republicans or Democrats. If you knew anything at all, nobody (at least not me) said that Lincoln was a liberal Democrat. The Republican party in the 1860's was very liberal. "Upon its founding, it supported classical liberalism and economic reform while opposing the expansion of slavery. " [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_[/URL](United_States).

Please don't fall into the same trap as every member of the Moron Brigade does. That trap is "Republicans opposed slavery in 1860 and Democrats supported it in 1860 so that means that Democrats still support slavery."[/QUOTE]LOL funny post. I actually thought USA did start Vietnam with a black flag attack on our own ship in the Pacific? How did Vietnam start? The one thing about nam I do know is that it did not end well and the best movie hero of all time served in Nam with distinction. John J. Rambo LOL. He's Tooms and thanks worst nightmare! Lololol.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2767068]I have said it before that I think GDP is a terrible metric for anything other than GDP. Has nothing to do w general prosperity or happiness. Arms production.

I noticed in my time here that USAns tend to have a hyperfixation with economic stats. As if the solutions to life lie within. Success and happiness are not found in statisitcs. If you were to ask me if my parents have had a big influence upon me, I wouldn't check the amount of money they have spent on me and make a decisiion.[/QUOTE]Nah we all just got a lot of debt and were always focusing on paying it off. House mortgage, car loan, credit card specifically for international strip clubs, pension, savings, etc. One thing that always makes me sad is when I return home to these fat ugly selfish mother fucking American slobs after seeing the latin beauties for a few days. It makes me think, shit if I lived in Latin America I would want socialism too, all you need is a roof and food with all that pussy walking around haha. America is the world's corporate office, a nation of upper middle class frenemy's and the people who serve you coffee / donuts who are only good enough for a Hello, and good bye.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2767225]Google "House Popular Vote. " You'll see a link on aei.org that says Republicans got 51% of the popular vote to Democrats' 47%. I assumed 222 Republican and 213 Democrat seats to get the 2% margin for the Republicans in the House.

That link though was from November 18.

If you do what I told you to do with Google, the first link will be to the Cook Political Report, which right now shows Republicans with a 2. 9% margin in the popular vote and a 1. 6% margin in House seats, with two seats undecided.

I picked the aei.org numbers because they were staring me straight in the face and I didn't have to do any math.[/QUOTE]As of this writing, the Cook source I assume you referenced states Repubs have so far garnered 50.7% of the popular House vote. I don't see a percentage for how successfully the Repubs' voter suppression rigging worked against the Dems. Maybe you need to be a subscriber to see that. We could assume the Dems would be close to 49.3% minus any stray third party votes.

The AEI source, as you pointed out, is by now more than two weeks behind on the vote count. Moreover, it is an opinion piece from a winger Washington Examiner writer who, as far as I can tell, provided no source for where he came up with his 51% to 47% figures.

With all the necessary information at one's fingertips now, why not check first before repeating false history? . The Republican Party began in 1854, staunchly opposed to slavery and Mormonism. Uncle Ho and the communists ousted the French colonizers at Dien Bin Fu in 1954. JFK sent in "advisors. This morphed into the Vietnam War, called "The American War" by its residents. Type in Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 1964. May 11,1961. JFK sent 400 special forces and 100 other military advisors to South Vietnam. On the same day he ordered the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam by South Vietnamese agents under the direction of the CIA. He also ordered the South Vietnamese forces to infiltrate Laos to disrupt communist bases and supply lines. John James Rambo is a fictional character. John Heisley, son of flag designer Newt Heisley is depicted on the POW MIA flag. He was never a POW, but had the gaunt look of one to his father.

[QUOTE=Beijing4987;2767408]With all the necessary information at one's fingertips now, why not check first before repeating false history? . The Republican Party began in 1854, staunchly opposed to slavery and Mormonism. Uncle Ho and the communists ousted the French colonizers at Dien Bin Fu in 1954. JFK sent in "advisors. This morphed into the Vietnam War, called "The American War" by its residents. Type in Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 1964. May 11,1961. JFK sent 400 special forces and 100 other military advisors to South Vietnam. On the same day he ordered the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam by South Vietnamese agents under the direction of the CIA. He also ordered the South Vietnamese forces to infiltrate Laos to disrupt communist bases and supply lines. John James Rambo is a fictional character. John Heisley, son of flag designer Newt Heisley is depicted on the POW MIA flag. He was never a POW, but had the gaunt look of one to his father.[/QUOTE]No Rambo was real. All three movies were filmed with actual combat footage. Look it up. LOL.

[QUOTE=Beijing4987;2767408]With all the necessary information at one's fingertips now, why not check first before repeating false history? . The Republican Party began in 1854, staunchly opposed to slavery and Mormonism. Uncle Ho and the communists ousted the French colonizers at Dien Bin Fu in 1954. JFK sent in "advisors. This morphed into the Vietnam War, called "The American War" by its residents. Type in Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 1964. May 11,1961. JFK sent 400 special forces and 100 other military advisors to South Vietnam. On the same day he ordered the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam by South Vietnamese agents under the direction of the CIA. He also ordered the South Vietnamese forces to infiltrate Laos to disrupt communist bases and supply lines. John James Rambo is a fictional character. John Heisley, son of flag designer Newt Heisley is depicted on the POW MIA flag. He was never a POW, but had the gaunt look of one to his father.[/QUOTE]You're late to the conversation. Several very intelligent and very partisan posters believe the American economy (GDP and jobs) performs like gangbusters when Democrats are president and turns to sh*t when Republicans are president. If you look at the historical record, you'd think they have a point. You look closer and the reason is because Republicans were in office during most of the recessions, and during the start of the COVID pandemic. And indeed at least one of the posters holds Republican presidents and policies responsible for all the recessions, and for the worldwide COVID pandemic.

Anyway I believe you can make a stronger case that Democratic presidents are responsible for wars, than Republican presidents are responsible for recessions. Now do I believe either of those theories? Well, no. Hell no. I'm just trying to make a point.

Did Democratic presidents start those wars? Of course not. But it's just as ridiculous to say Republican presidents started the recessions.

[QUOTE=Beijing4987;2767408]With all the necessary information at one's fingertips now, why not check first before repeating false history? . The Republican Party began in 1854, staunchly opposed to slavery and Mormonism. [b]Uncle Ho and the communists ousted the French colonizers at Dien Bin Fu in 1954. JFK sent in "advisors. This morphed into the Vietnam War, called "The American War" by its residents.[/b] Type in Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 1964. May 11,1961. JFK sent 400 special forces and 100 other military advisors to South Vietnam. On the same day he ordered the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam by South Vietnamese agents under the direction of the CIA. He also ordered the South Vietnamese forces to infiltrate Laos to disrupt communist bases and supply lines. John James Rambo is a fictional character. John Heisley, son of flag designer Newt Heisley is depicted on the POW MIA flag. He was never a POW, but had the gaunt look of one to his father.[/QUOTE]So what do you suppose was happening over there during those Happy Days from 1954 until the election of JFK?

[B]Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics[/B]

[URL]https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics[/URL]

[QUOTE]The earliest casualty record contains a date of death of June 8, 1956, and the most recent casualty record contains a date of death of May 28, 2006.[/QUOTE]

Still believe Fauci and the rest of the disgusting heads of state are telling the truth? Watch this:

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc9YHBXad5o[/URL]

Where is the media coverage? Shockingly slient. Why? Bcos we live in an authoritarian society where discenting voices are silenced. Only those that are radically propagandised think we live in a free world.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2767423]You're late to the conversation. Several very intelligent and very partisan posters believe the American economy (GDP and jobs) performs like gangbusters when Democrats are president and turns to sh*t when Republicans are president. If you look at the historical record, you'd think they have a point. [b]You look closer and the reason is because Republicans were in office during most of the recessions, and during the start of the COVID pandemic. And indeed at least one of the posters holds Republican presidents and policies responsible for all the recessions, and for the worldwide COVID pandemic.[/b]

Anyway I believe you can make a stronger case that Democratic presidents are responsible for wars, than Republican presidents are responsible for recessions. Now do I believe either of those theories? Well, no. Hell no. I'm just trying to make a point.

Did Democratic presidents start those wars? Of course not. But it's just as ridiculous to say Republican presidents started the recessions.[/QUOTE]Indeed. That is exactly what you will find "if you look closer", except I have yet to read a post by anyone here claiming Repub presidents and policies were responsible for "all recessions." However, I am certainly open to reading his / her case for such a claim.

But the Great Depressions, Great Recessions and Massive Job Losses of the past 100 years? No argument possible; they belong to Repub economic policies and stewardship. All of them.

Some posters here hope we accept that is only a 100 year long series of wild coincidences, accidents, weirdly partisan business and economic cycles, maybe even badly misunderstood or misrepresented data. LOL.

Oh, and you forgot to mention the equally wild series of coincidences, etc required to result in Repub policies and stewardship producing NONE of the Great Boom Times, Economic Expansions and Historic Jobs Creation of the past 100 years while only the Dems have done that.

Of course, "if you look closer", you will most certainly see that wildly coincidental pattern repeated right up to and including the recent Repub so-called potus and the current Dem POTUS.

Not my favourite person at all. BW to me is a neo--lib quasi racist. BUt he is also one of the most intelligent people in the USA. He speaks here of COVID, corruption and the demise of the DEM party, and gets many issues exactly spot on. Goot admire his defence while under serious attack:

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBRL5VZThTM[/URL]

A note to the jingoists on this thread: David Morrell wrote the novel First Blood from 1968-1971. The name for his main character came to him shopping for food. Rambo is a type of Apple. Morrell taught composition at Penn State University, where he met many Vietnam war veterans with PTSD, which afflicted the fictional John Rambo.

"House Republicans voted Wednesday against a proposed earmark ban during a conference rules meeting, a vote that held larger implications as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy seeks to become speaker.

The conference voted 52-158 against an amendment proposed by Rep. Tom McClintock, are-Calif. , that would get rid of the current conference rule allowing members to earmark spending bills if they meet certain transparency criteria."

[URL]https://rollcall.com/2022/11/30/pressure-builds-on-mccarthy-as-house-gop-earmarks-vote-nears/[/URL]

I wonder what the results would have been if the ballot hadn't been secret.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2767213]

[B]Explainer: Republicans push to restrict mail-in voting ahead of U.S. November midterms[/B]

[B]Republicans sue to disqualify thousands of mail ballots in swing states.[/B]

[B]Now I'm curious. Do you and other Bothsiders/Neithersiders have any examples of party-wide efforts by the Dems to make it more difficult for likely Repub voters or anyone else to submit their ballots, to cast their votes, to have their votes count, to suppress, obstruct, disenfranchise, hinder and thwart likely Repub votes or to reduce legal voting anywhere in the country as the Repubs have with the Dems?[/B][/QUOTE]I don't believe Republicans unfairly suppress the vote any more than I believe that Democrats stole the 2020 election. The courts, which contrary to popular opinion are pretty damn close to impartial when it comes to protecting American Democracy, step in to prevent things like that. Furthermore, I believe BOTH parties try equally hard to disadvantage the other side in elections.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2767213]On that topic, I had a splendid shaved pussy DATY experience last night with a lovely face, very hot body, 20-something year old Nana Plaza go-go girl, followed by her treating me to one of the better BBBJ+CIM+swallow experiences I've had in a while. I loved it when she smiled and said, "I have your babies in my tummy now" after swallowing my cum. But not really. I've had a vasectomy. There is nothing in her tummy that could make a baby. Still, very cute.[/QUOTE]Wise move, the vasectomy. That ***** could have puked up your seed and planted it in her pussy. Just kidding. The last two go go girls I pulled from Nana were 10's, but were done with me in 45 minutes. I need to study up again on the EihTooms Hooker Selection Method.
[QUOTE=EihTooms;2767388]As of this writing, the Cook source I assume you referenced states Repubs have so far garnered 50.7% of the popular House vote. I don't see a percentage for how successfully the Repubs' voter suppression rigging worked against the Dems. Maybe you need to be a subscriber to see that. We could assume the Dems would be close to 49.3% minus any stray third party votes.

The AEI source, as you pointed out, is by now more than two weeks behind on the vote count. Moreover, it is an opinion piece from a winger Washington Examiner writer who, as far as I can tell, provided no source for where he came up with his 51% to 47% figures.[/QUOTE]

If you clicked into the Cook link, which I did for the first time today, you would have seen that they had Democrats with 47.8% and Republicans with 50.7% of the popular vote. It stares you straight in the face. I don't understand why you would imply Democrats got 49.3%.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2767474]I don't believe Republicans unfairly suppress the vote any more than I believe that Democrats stole the 2020 election. The courts, which contrary to popular opinion are pretty damn close to impartial when it comes to protecting American Democracy, step in to prevent things like that. Furthermore, I believe BOTH parties try equally hard to disadvantage the other side in elections.

Wise move, the vasectomy. That ***** could have puked up your seed and planted it in her pussy. Just kidding. The last two go go girls I pulled from Nana were 10's, but were done with me in 45 minutes. I need to study up again on the EihTooms Hooker Selection Method.


If you clicked into the Cook link, which I did for the first time today, you would have seen that they had Democrats with 47.8% and Republicans with 50.7% of the popular vote. It stares you straight in the face. I don't understand why you would imply Democrats got 49.3%.[/QUOTE]Did Twitter take orders from the Fed and suppress Hunter Biden story? The more important point of this is that hard core Dems could care less their side is corrupt, yet they have months long fake media slander campaigns against Trump over fake Russian collusion, fake Ukraine dealings which lead to a fucking impeachment, Dems and Media look the other way when cities burn and they label the rioters as "protesters".

All that being said, it does not excuse the idiotic behavior of the Trump and Jan. 6 morons. I pray he does not run again. I also prey people start holding political parties they favor accountable when there is clear evidence of deep corruption or any evidence of corruption.

The average American witnesses these events and it leads one to believe that voters no longer care about right, wrong, corruption, super high inflation, billions spent on foreign wars, incredibly ineffective candidates "Biden / Fettereman". They just vote for a "the" or an "are". That type of thinking leads to a failed state. Sad.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2767474]I don't believe Republicans unfairly suppress the vote any more than I believe that Democrats stole the 2020 election. The courts, which contrary to popular opinion are pretty damn close to impartial when it comes to protecting American Democracy, step in to prevent things like that. Furthermore, I believe BOTH parties try equally hard to disadvantage the other side in elections.

Wise move, the vasectomy. That ***** could have puked up your seed and planted it in her pussy. Just kidding. The last two go go girls I pulled from Nana were 10's, but were done with me in 45 minutes. I need to study up again on the EihTooms Hooker Selection Method.


If you clicked into the Cook link, which I did for the first time today, you would have seen that they had Democrats with 47.8% and Republicans with 50.7% of the popular vote. It stares you straight in the face. I don't understand why you would imply Democrats got 49.3%.[/QUOTE]The screenshots below are what was staring me in the face on that Cook site. And still are:

[URL]https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022[/URL]

No mention of the Dem vote percentage, only the Repub vote percentage and a pitch to see more IF we subscribe.

Did you think I included a link and lied about what was in it at the same time? I am a Dem, not a Repub.

So BOTH parties sued, reduced early voting days in areas more likely to serve the opposing party voters and added new requirements for submitting ballots from those more likely opposition voters, did they? I provided three links for examples of Repubs targeting likely Dem voter choices, particularly voting by mail, since 2020.

Please provide links where Dems proposed obstacles to Election Day voting preferred by Repubs and as directed by their glorious champion of free and fair elections, Trump.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2767580]The screenshots below are what was staring me in the face on that Cook site. And still are:

[URL]https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022[/URL]

No mention of the Dem vote percentage, only the Repub vote percentage and a pitch to see more IF we subscribe.

Did you think I included a link and lied about what was in it at the same time? I am a Dem, not a Repub.

So BOTH parties sued, reduced early voting days in areas more likely to serve the opposing party voters and added new requirements for submitting ballots from those more likely opposition voters, did they? I provided three links for examples of Repubs targeting likely Dem voter choices, particularly voting by mail, since 2020.

Please provide links where Dems proposed obstacles to Election Day voting preferred by Repubs and as directed by their glorious champion of free and fair elections, Trump.[/QUOTE]I think I know what happened. Apparently you were looking at the web page with an upright handphone and didn't scroll right or left or up or down. If you'd used a PC or rotated your phone 90 degrees, the percentages would have been staring you straight in the face, 47.8% Democrats vs 50.7% Republicans.

[URL]https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022[/URL]

As to your beliefs, both parties sue. I don't know why Republicans would want to restrict voting days. Compared to your average Democrat, your average Republican is more likely to be busting his ass instead of sitting on his ass. So the extra and weekend voting days benefit the Republicans. And as to "adding requirements," I don't believe there are any significant barriers preventing any American, other than individuals with a criminal record in many states, from voting.

No criticism of you though. You're subjected to a constant barrage of propaganda from Democratic politicians and operatives and left of center media so it's no wonder you believe there's a problem.

And, with the exception of former-Democrat Donald Trump and his acolytes, Democrats are arguably the bigger offenders when it comes to trying to avoid counting votes lawfully cast in favor of the candidates of the opposing party.

I picked this article out especially for you, as it comes from a source you know and trust:

[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/opinion/democrat-republican-electoral-votes.html[/URL]

How about looking at the numbers? To appreciate this next link, you're going to have to view it on your laptop instead of some rinky dink handphone.

[URL]https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2020:_Analysis_of_rejected_ballots[/URL]

Scroll down to the table "Comparison of rejected absentee / mail-in ballots in the 2016,2018 and 2020 general elections. Sort in descending order by rejection rate. Which state has rejected the largest % of ballots during the 2016,2018 and 2020 elections combined? New York, a blue state. In 2020, in descending order, the ten states with the highest rejection rates were Arkansas, New Mexico, New York, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Illinois, Louisiana, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. That's 5 blue states, 4 red states, and one purple state.

Yeah, Trump supporters went ape shit crazy after the 2020 election, trying to overturn election results. And what were the results? How many votes were overturned as a result of the Trumpsters' efforts? Was it a handful? Or zero, zip, nada, not a one. I'm not sure, but the courts, including Trump appointees, did their jobs the way they were supposed to.

The left of center media and Democratic Party are making a mountain out of a molehill, as it's a damn effective way of firing up the base and getting them to go out and vote. A good example is the fury of the Democrats at not being allowed to furnish food and beverages to people in election lines in Georgia. WTF? Do they want to return to 100 years ago, where politicians handed out booze and barbecue in front of the polling stations while they electioneered?

Well, combined with Trump's after election craziness and abortion, the strategy worked. Those are the reasons there wasn't a GOP blow out this year.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2767579]Did Twitter take orders from the Fed and suppress Hunter Biden story? The more important point of this is that hard core Dems could care less their side is corrupt, yet they have months long fake media slander campaigns against Trump over fake Russian collusion, fake Ukraine dealings which lead to a fucking impeachment, Dems and Media look the other way when cities burn and they label the rioters as "protesters".

All that being said, it does not excuse the idiotic behavior of the Trump and Jan. 6 morons. I pray he does not run again. I also prey people start holding political parties they favor accountable when there is clear evidence of deep corruption or any evidence of corruption.

The average American witnesses these events and it leads one to believe that voters no longer care about right, wrong, corruption, super high inflation, billions spent on foreign wars, incredibly ineffective candidates "Biden / Fettereman". They just vote for a "the" or an "are". That type of thinking leads to a failed state. Sad.[/QUOTE]I strongly agree with your last 2 paragraphs, although not necessarily with the first. But we're on the same page. The media is dominated by the left. We've discussed that here before, and the best the left of center crowd could come up with was "Oh, well, you don't take into account talk radio. " Fucking talk radio! If there were any big mainstream outlets besides the Wall Street Journal and Fox News on the right, maybe large numbers of conservative Americans wouldn't be resorting to radio for news and commentary.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2767448]Indeed. That is exactly what you will find "if you look closer", except I have yet to read a post by anyone here claiming Repub presidents and policies were responsible for "all recessions." However, I am certainly open to reading his / her case for such a claim.

But the Great Depressions, Great Recessions and Massive Job Losses of the past 100 years? No argument possible; they belong to Repub economic policies and stewardship. All of them.

Some posters here hope we accept that is only a 100 year long series of wild coincidences, accidents, weirdly partisan business and economic cycles, maybe even badly misunderstood or misrepresented data. LOL.

Oh, and you forgot to mention the equally wild series of coincidences, etc required to result in Repub policies and stewardship producing NONE of the Great Boom Times, Economic Expansions and Historic Jobs Creation of the past 100 years while only the Dems have done that.

Of course, "if you look closer", you will most certainly see that wildly coincidental pattern repeated right up to and including the recent Repub so-called potus and the current Dem POTUS.[/QUOTE]Thank goodness for the Republicans! If they weren't around, the federal government would be even larger and more intrusive, and our per capita GDP would be comparable to France's.

But the future does not look as rosy as the past. Unfortunately, a Democrat, Donald Trump, infiltrated the Republican Party. Many Republicans followed this Pied Piper, and now the majority of Republican politicians are as bad as the Democrats -- see my post #11130 below. Perhaps another Ronald Reagan will come along and set America straight. We can hope.

We've covered this before, see below. You're wrong.

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2743466[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2744566[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2747584[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748196[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748202[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748598[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2749483[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2767698]I think I know what happened. Apparently you were looking at the web page with an upright handphone and didn't scroll right or left or up or down. If you'd used a PC or rotated your phone 90 degrees, the percentages would have been staring you straight in the face, 47.8% Democrats vs 50.7% Republicans.

[URL]https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022[/URL]

As to your beliefs, both parties sue. I don't know why Republicans would want to restrict voting days. Compared to your average Democrat, your average Republican is more likely to be busting his ass instead of sitting on his ass. So the extra and weekend voting days benefit the Republicans. And as to "adding requirements," I don't believe there are any significant barriers preventing any American, other than individuals with a criminal record in many states, from voting.

No criticism of you though. You're subjected to a constant barrage of propaganda from Democratic politicians and operatives and left of center media so it's no wonder you believe there's a problem.

And, with the exception of former-Democrat Donald Trump and his acolytes, Democrats are arguably the bigger offenders when it comes to trying to avoid counting votes lawfully cast in favor of the candidates of the opposing party.

I picked this article out especially for you, as it comes from a source you know and trust:

[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/opinion/democrat-republican-electoral-votes.html[/URL]

How about looking at the numbers? To appreciate this next link, you're going to have to view it on your laptop instead of some rinky dink handphone.

[URL]https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2020:_Analysis_of_rejected_ballots[/URL]

Scroll down to the table "Comparison of rejected absentee / mail-in ballots in the 2016,2018 and 2020 general elections. Sort in descending order by rejection rate. Which state has rejected the largest % of ballots during the 2016,2018 and 2020 elections combined? New York, a blue state. In 2020, in descending order, the ten states with the highest rejection rates were Arkansas, New Mexico, New York, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Illinois, Louisiana, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. That's 5 blue states, 4 red states, and one purple state.

Yeah, Trump supporters went ape shit crazy after the 2020 election, trying to overturn election results. And what were the results? How many votes were overturned as a result of the Trumpsters' efforts? Was it a handful? Or zero, zip, nada, not a one. I'm not sure, but the courts, including Trump appointees, did their jobs the way they were supposed to.

The left of center media and Democratic Party are making a mountain out of a molehill, as it's a damn effective way of firing up the base and getting them to go out and vote. A good example is the fury of the Democrats at not being allowed to furnish food and beverages to people in election lines in Georgia. WTF? Do they want to return to 100 years ago, where politicians handed out booze and barbecue in front of the polling stations while they electioneered?

Well, combined with Trump's after election craziness and abortion, the strategy worked. Those are the reasons there wasn't a GOP blow out this year.[/QUOTE]Yes, I am using a smartphone and my thumb for this. I rarely boot up my laptop anymore. And when I moved left, right, zoomed in, zoomed out there was only the Repub count.

Throwing out invalid ballots? I have no objection to any qualified official doing that. But Repubs want to appoint avowed Election Denying / Lying QAnon Repub loons to make those decisions.

Your NYT link was quickly obscured by a Subscription Required pop up so I did not read much of it. But it appeared to be about the Dems' noble efforts to abandon the decidedly undemocratic Electoral College system. Good. I hope they succeed someday.

Otherwise, I will count this as another "I can't" response, this time to my challenge to show us where Dems mount a party-wide effort to disenfranchise likely Repub voters and not count their votes.

Maybe that challenge is too broad, allowing for every itty-bitty insignificant ballot gathering or counting glitch by a Dem somewhere being given falsely equal weight to what Repubs have been doing for a long time to suppress Dem votes.

So, to add a bit more focus to it, how about this one; please name and cite a case where a recognized leader of the Democtatic Party, say, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, for example, led a violent, cop-killing insurrection to storm the Capitol Building on the day the votes AND the Electoral College awards were to be confirmed on the basis of a Big And Very Well Established And Proven Lie and that the Vice President of their Party should disenfranchise 81,000,000+ voters, throw out ALL of their ballots, dsregard ALL of their votes for POTUS and give it to the Dem candidate regardless.

Got anything for that?

And to really drive home your "BOTH Parties do that" assertion, please link the highly regarded polls showing a decisive majority of Dems being four square behind such a proven Big Lie and, by logical deduction, the unconstitutional measures taken by the Party to throw out those millions of votes.

Since "BOTH Parties" do this sort of thing it ought to be easy to provide links for that.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2767703]Thank goodness for the Republicans! If they weren't around, the federal government would be even larger and more intrusive, and our per capita GDP would be comparable to France's.

But the future does not look as rosy as the past. Unfortunately, a Democrat, Donald Trump, infiltrated the Republican Party. Many Republicans followed this Pied Piper, and now the majority of Republican politicians are as bad as the Democrats -- see my post #11130 below. Perhaps another Ronald Reagan will come along and set America straight. We can hope.

We've covered this before, see below. You're wrong.

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2743466[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2744566[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2747584[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748196[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748202[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748598[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2749483[/URL][/QUOTE]Those links take me to entire pages of posts by many posters.

Here's the deal; if Repubs didn't consistently produce crap results they would run on those actual results in elections instead of on their traditional sucker social issues. They would not have to be continually drawn to nominate unqualified "celebrities" for the top job of economic steward in order to sell their crap policies and results as they did with Eisenhower, Reagan and Trump. Not that their actual experienced pols like Hoover, Nixon and the Bushes fared any better on results.

Their decades' long March to getting everything important as wrong as possible and somehow still exist would not have led them inevitably and directly to Donald J. Trump, the ultimate con man snake oil pitchman to sell their consistent crap policies and results to enough ignorant, America-hating hillbillies to squeeze out another unpopular election "win" and throw the entire country into another, another and another Great Repub disaster.

But the Repub Party has no alternative but to pull all that voter disenfranchising and vote suppresion shit, running on their classic sucker social issues and choosing "celebrity" con men to sell their snake oil crap.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2767956]Here's the deal; if Repubs didn't consistently produce crap results they would run on those actual results in elections instead of on their traditional sucker social issues. They would not have to be continually drawn to nominate unqualified "celebrities" for the top job of economic steward in order to sell their crap policies and results as they did with Eisenhower, Reagan and Trump.
Their decades' long March to getting everything important as wrong as possible and somehow still exist
[/QUOTE]Here's the deal Tooms. If the Dems didn't consistently produce crap results the Reps would not get in power every second election cycle. Its your blind loyalty to a correupt party that favours the rich that leads directly to the Reps gaining power every few years. It's YOU thatis to blame for not embracing change.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2768039]Here's the deal Tooms. If the Dems didn't consistently produce crap results the Reps would not get in power every second election cycle. Its your blind loyalty to a correupt party that favours the rich that leads directly to the Reps gaining power every few years. It's YOU thatis to blame for not embracing change.[/QUOTE]Here's what really happens.

Part 1: A Dem president gets elected. Repubs spend 2 years throwing up roadblocks to every bit of legislation the Dems propose. The Repubs point to the "fact" that Dems haven't gotten anything done (they conveniently forget that Repubs were the ones blocking everything). Repubs gain a majority of House and-or Senate. Repubs spend the next 2 years (or up to 6 more years) complaining about how Dems want "open borders" and-or are communist and-or are socialist and-or want to take away your guns and-or a bunch of other stuff.

Part 2: After 4 (or 8) years, a Repub gets elected president because they have convinced the voters that they know what they're doing re: the economy. Repubs have a majority in the House and-or Senate. Repubs pass another voodoo economics tax cut for the rich and spend money like drunken sailors. The economy goes into a tailspin. Repubs are thrown out (after 4 or 8 years) and a Dem is elected president and Dems have control of the House and-or Senate. Dems pass legislation that spends money to assist the economy to pull out of the tailspin. Repubs are now suddenly against spending any money at all even though Repubs just spend 4-to-8 years spending money like drunken sailors.

Go to Part 1.

Dick Cheney: " Reagan proved that deficits don't matter" Avowed fiscal conservative "Snoot" Gingrich has yet to pay off his 2012 presidential campaign debt of $4 million +.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2768060]Here's what really happens.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Go to Part 1.[/QUOTE]No doubt. But you skipped the part about why the Reps can secure enough seats to block the Dems. Go to my previous comment.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2768060]Here's what really happens.

Part 1: A Dem president gets elected. Repubs spend 2 years throwing up roadblocks to every bit of legislation the Dems propose. The Repubs point to the "fact" that Dems haven't gotten anything done (they conveniently forget that Repubs were the ones blocking everything). Repubs gain a majority of House and-or Senate. Repubs spend the next 2 years (or up to 6 more years) complaining about how Dems want "open borders" and-or are communist and-or are socialist and-or want to take away your guns and-or a bunch of other stuff.

Part 2: After 4 (or 8) years, a Repub gets elected president because they have convinced the voters that they know what they're doing re: the economy. Repubs have a majority in the House and-or Senate. Repubs pass another voodoo economics tax cut for the rich and spend money like drunken sailors. The economy goes into a tailspin. Repubs are thrown out (after 4 or 8 years) and a Dem is elected president and Dems have control of the House and-or Senate. Dems pass legislation that spends money to assist the economy to pull out of the tailspin. Repubs are now suddenly against spending any money at all even though Repubs just spend 4-to-8 years spending money like drunken sailors.

Go to Part 1.[/QUOTE]This is a great summary of our political process, at least for the last 30 years.

The Democrats aren't saint or miracle workers, but they work hard on fixing the economy and social justice.

The Republicans have 2 missions in life: to obstruct the Democrats and pass tax cuts for the rich.

Among the two, I'd say, the Repubs have it easier.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2768060]Here's what really happens.

Part 1: A Dem president gets elected. Repubs spend 2 years throwing up roadblocks to every bit of legislation the Dems propose. The Repubs point to the "fact" that Dems haven't gotten anything done (they conveniently forget that Repubs were the ones blocking everything). Repubs gain a majority of House and-or Senate. Repubs spend the next 2 years (or up to 6 more years) complaining about how Dems want "open borders" and-or are communist and-or are socialist and-or want to take away your guns and-or a bunch of other stuff.

Part 2: After 4 (or 8) years, a Repub gets elected president because they have convinced the voters that they know what they're doing re: the economy. Repubs have a majority in the House and-or Senate. Repubs pass another voodoo economics tax cut for the rich and spend money like drunken sailors. The economy goes into a tailspin. Repubs are thrown out (after 4 or 8 years) and a Dem is elected president and Dems have control of the House and-or Senate. Dems pass legislation that spends money to assist the economy to pull out of the tailspin. Repubs are now suddenly against spending any money at all even though Repubs just spend 4-to-8 years spending money like drunken sailors.

Go to Part 1.[/QUOTE]That is pretty much how it goes. Except lately it appears the jig is up on the Repub Con and so it is becoming more and more difficult for Repubs to get elected in any normal, democratic way.

It turns out that after decades and decades of crap economic results quite contrary to their con that "our ideas are better", note they can't make the case that their "results" are better, democracy just isn't into the Repub Party all that much.

Consequently, the Repub Party has decided they aren't into democracy all that much either.

Their new approach is to simply prevent as many people too smart and well informed to fall for their con from voting, to make it more difficult to vote, to not count their vote if they do manage to do it, to violently attack the seat of democracy even if it means killing cops along the way when the votes don't fall their way, etc.

Oh and best to have Repub leadership flatter, praise and outright rank higher than superior elected officials on our side the dictators, despots, "strong men" and genocidal murderers they wish they could be in the USA if only they could suspend and ignore that pesky Constitution thingy and inconvenient democracy that is so unkind to them.

Along the way there will always be Mainstream Media to "Bothside" campaign for Repubs in order to reach at least a 50/50 chance of putting their Repub darlings in position to produce the "Economic Disaster"! Headlines MSM craves.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2768039]Here's the deal Tooms. If the Dems didn't consistently produce crap results the Reps would not get in power every second election cycle. Its your blind loyalty to a correupt party that favours the rich that leads directly to the Reps gaining power every few years. It's YOU thatis to blame for not embracing change.[/QUOTE]If it weren't for the evil Dems always reducing the skyrocketing unemployment rates, the skyrocketing deficits with zero to show for them and massive job losses that always greets them as the Repubs are driven out, reversing the Great Repub Crashes and Great Repub Depressions and Great Repub Recessions and Great Repub Jobs Destruction into Great Dem Recoveries and Expansions, Great Dem Deficit Reduction, Great Dem Unemployment Rate Reduction and Great Dem Jobs Creation, those poor baby ignorant hillbillies would never be forced to suppress Dem votes, redraw districts to within an inch on either side of every Repub in the districts, appoint QAnon Repub Election Liars to count the votes, kill cops to overturn free and fair elections and, yes, even vote sometimes to get their beloved Repubs in office by hook or by crook so they can produce the classic Repub economic disasters they and their loyal "Bothsider" benefactors in Mainstream Media much prefer for America.

So sad. And so evil and diabolically powerful are those Dems to force those poor Repub supporter babies to do that.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2768194]
Along the way there will always be Mainstream Media to "Bothside" campaign for Repubs in order to reach at least a 50/50 chance of putting their Repub darlings in position to produce the "Economic Disaster"! Headlines MSM craves.[/QUOTE]Voting for the Dems is the most effective bothsiderism policy. If you support a shlt party, you gaurantee that the other shlt party will get in straight afterwards.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2768282]Voting for the Dems is the most effective bothsiderism policy. If you support a shlt party, you gaurantee that the other shlt party will get in straight afterwards.[/QUOTE]I vote for Dems, the party that has not produced anything close to the shit Repubs have produced for at least 100 years.

The only reason the shit Repub Party's candidate has gotten into the White House since 1988 is because the winger-rigged SCOTUS or winger-rigged Electoral College system awarded it to them, not because the American voters wanted them anywhere near the place, with the sole exception being the winger-rigged SCOTUS' appointee in 2000 fucked up his National Security duties so badly he managed to blunder and lie us into 2-3 quagmire wars. And then he could proudly announce he was running for re-election as a "Wartime President" so we are not replace him while he was busy exacerbating the mess he made.

And whooboy that 2nd term produce one hellishly colossal Great Repub Economic Disaster!

That is one of the things I was talking about when I said the effectiveness of the Repub Con has been fading lately and democracy is just not into the Repub Party anymore. They haven't been able to win the vote to take the WH on any rational basis for the past 34 years and through 8 presidential elections.

Their most iconic and beloved classic Repub leader ever, and who still is, lost the WH vote TWICE by Millions, lost the House, lost the Senate, lost virtually every special election in which he was "King Maker" for his Party and as such went on to blather, direct and preside over one of the worst first midterm election showings vs its opppsition of all time!

And that is despite typically pro Repub Bothsiders in Mainsteam Media and you working tirelessly to convince Dems not to bother voting and thereby help Repubs win elections over and over again.

All of that would likely be because the American electorate is not buying your Bothsider con that elections don't matter so you might as well let Repubs win. Sorry.

What you said just doesn't make sense absent the winger-rigged system, which, guess what, is rigged by wingers to prevent your mythical "better" Third Party from keeping Repubs away from the levers of control so they can't produce more disasters even more than they do Dems.

You should kneel down every day and thank whatever pro Repub Bothsider gawd you worship that there is a Democratic Party capable of defeating all the winger-rigging and your MSM's pro Repub Bothsiderism as often as possible. Your mythical Third Party fantasy sure won't do it.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2767956]Those links take me to entire pages of posts by many posters.

Here's the deal; if Repubs didn't consistently produce crap results they would run on those actual results in elections instead of on their traditional sucker social issues. They would not have to be continually drawn to nominate unqualified "celebrities" for the top job of economic steward in order to sell their crap policies and results as they did with Eisenhower, Reagan and Trump. Not that their actual experienced pols like Hoover, Nixon and the Bushes fared any better on results.[/QUOTE]OK, this should work. These are just my repeated posts trying to show you the error of your thinking. I guess you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink from the river of knowledge and truth.

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2743466&viewfull=1#post2743466[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2744566&viewfull=1#post2744566[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2747584&viewfull=1#post2747584[/URL].

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748196&viewfull=1#post2748196[/URL].

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748202&viewfull=1#post2748202[/URL].

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748598&viewfull=1#post2748598[/URL].

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2748972&viewfull=1#post2748972[/URL].

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2749483&viewfull=1#post2749483[/URL].

Here are a couple of weightier tomes for Tooms, written by economists. The first one from Brian Riedl is an easy read.

[URL]https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/presidents-as-economic-managers[/URL]

Here's the classic paper on the subject. You have to download the. Pdf:

[URL]https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20140913[/URL]

Conclusions of both: The party of the President makes little or no difference in economic performance.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2768142]No doubt. But you skipped the part about why the Reps can secure enough seats to block the Dems. Go to my previous comment.[/QUOTE]I simply didn't want to repeat a point but I will spell it our for you. Repubs in Congress get elected because (before now) because they convinced voters that they knew about the economy. Now and for the past dozen years or so, Repubs get elected to Congress because they pander to their base with code-word dog-whistles. For instance, "law and order" means keep the POC down. Other examples are as follows:

Personal Responsibility.

"It's not your conditions but rather your actions which are responsible for where you are. This is said despite Republicans passing legislation which gave away 270 million acres of land, for free, which jolted the USA Economy, created personal opportunity, and wealth that could be passed down, creating, well, better conditions for white people. "

Big Government.

Code for federal assistance — such as grants, SNAP benefits, unemployment, health insurance. It is also used to describe federal protections — such as regulation and civil rights. It claims government being too big and too involved in the lives of "individuals. "

Job Creators.

Means people who own businesses that employ other people. For conservatives, this really means rich people. When 10% of the population controls 76% of the wealth, the last thing the Republicans and their rich donors need is even the slightest, burdensome tax increase.

School Choice.

Means students shouldn't be bound to attending schools in their local neighborhoods, but rather should have the freedom to attend any school that fits their needs. School choice for Republicans is a code word for segregation and allowing discrimination. It is a code word for the privatization of public schools. Rather than federal dollars going to public schools for teaching improvements or community learning, Republicans believe those dollars are better spent in the form of a voucher, which can be used toward tuition at a private or charter school.

Activist Judges.

"These are judges, usually appointed by Democratic presidents, who uphold any law passed with a Democratic majority or rule against any law passed with a Republican majority. On the contrary, judges appointed by Republicans who uphold conservative laws or strike down liberal laws are referred to by conservatives as, "originalists," or, "defenders of the constitution. " It's cool if we do it. Just not you. "

States' Rights / Leave it up to the states.

"Means that states should be free to implement discriminatory, racist laws without the federal government intervening. Because it took executive orders, literal acts of Congress, and federal intervention to end racist laws, conservatives intellectualize their defense of these issues by invoking terms such as individual liberty, government overreach, or, unconstitutional. So in other words, "We don't think the government should tell you that you can't discriminate, so we'll leave it up to the states which will turn a blind eye to protect your individual liberties, such as the right to discriminate. "

Critical Race Theory.

Code to derail efforts to promote talks about racial diversity, equity and inclusion in the public schools there. Black students complained about being the victims of racism and microaggressions. By ignoring these complaints, the White parents attending school board meetings to blow the CRT dog whistle have proven to us that they believe their fears and resentments about a manufactured CRT controversy are more valid than Black students' actual grievances. - [URL]https://jehallen.com/2021/12/30/the-crt-dog-whistle/[/URL].

Illegal immigrants.

Republican code words for undocumented aliens referred mainly to Latinos and especially to Mexicans. - History Network.

Islamic terrorism.

Used to offends millions of Islamic people in America who view massacres with the same disgust as Christians, Jews, and others in the United States. 'Radical Islamic terrorist' associate decent individuals and families with people who engage in crimes against humanity. " - History Network.

America first.

Claims that America's legal immigration system should be curtailed to those that can contribute not only economically, but have demonstrated respect for this nation's culture and rule of law. It calls for infrastructure that "reflects the architectural, engineering and aesthetic value that befits the progeny of European architecture. " It states that public infrastructure "must be utilitarian as well as stunningly, classically beautiful, befitting a world power and source of freedom," specifically citing the example of the ancient Romans. - MSN.

Real Americans.

Code for white right-wing Christians. Treating "evangelical White Christians" as a synonym for "right-wing conservatives" does no justice to the millions of evangelical white voters on the Christian Left or those who are not political. " - HandWiki.

Minimum Wage.

"We aren't going to pay you a living wage "because of socialism. " We are sending half the family to jail where they will work for even less. When we say "lazy minimum-wage workers," we aren't just talking about teenagers entering the workforce. " - FactMyth.

Tax Cuts.

"Tax Cuts. " Don't worry, we are going to cut welfare, but we'll also give you liberty and freedom from the welfare state. As you know, rich white people love creating jobs for poor black people. Just think about all the black people who have worked for white people in the past and how empowering it was. " - FactMyth.

Moochers & Takers.

Moochers and Takers. A moocher is someone on welfare. If welfare isn't enough of a clue, let's add in a word that sounds suspiciously like the and-Word. To this I say, "Yes, genius, poor black people took everything, that is why they have so much. It couldn't possibly be those whose wealth increases every year, who collect interest payments and profit off debt. Let's just keep blaming black people. " - FactMyth.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2767955]Yes, I am using a smartphone and my thumb for this. I rarely boot up my laptop anymore. And when I moved left, right, zoomed in, zoomed out there was only the Repub count.

Throwing out invalid ballots? I have no objection to any qualified official doing that. But Repubs want to appoint avowed Election Denying / Lying QAnon Repub loons to make those decisions.

Your NYT link was quickly obscured by a Subscription Required pop up so I did not read much of it. But it appeared to be about the Dems' noble efforts to abandon the decidedly undemocratic Electoral College system. Good. I hope they succeed someday.

Otherwise, I will count this as another "I can't" response, this time to my challenge to show us where Dems mount a party-wide effort to disenfranchise likely Repub voters and not count their votes.

Maybe that challenge is too broad, allowing for every itty-bitty insignificant ballot gathering or counting glitch by a Dem somewhere being given falsely equal weight to what Repubs have been doing for a long time to suppress Dem votes.

So, to add a bit more focus to it, how about this one; please name and cite a case where a recognized leader of the Democtatic Party, say, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, for example, led a violent, cop-killing insurrection to storm the Capitol Building on the day the votes AND the Electoral College awards were to be confirmed on the basis of a Big And Very Well Established And Proven Lie and that the Vice President of their Party should disenfranchise 81,000,000+ voters, throw out ALL of their ballots, dsregard ALL of their votes for POTUS and give it to the Dem candidate regardless.

Got anything for that?

And to really drive home your "BOTH Parties do that" assertion, please link the highly regarded polls showing a decisive majority of Dems being four square behind such a proven Big Lie and, by logical deduction, the unconstitutional measures taken by the Party to throw out those millions of votes.

Since "BOTH Parties" do this sort of thing it ought to be easy to provide links for that.[/QUOTE]I think Trump Republicans are about as kooky as Progressive Democrats. And yes, it worries me when Trumpsters run for positions like Secretary of State. I don't believe many won though. Like me, many Americans refused to vote for them.

Useful tip: If you can't see the entire width of a web page with your hand phone, rotate it 90 degrees, so that you're looking at it sideways.

And irony of ironies. The reason I subscribed to the New York Times, at the teaser rate of $4 a month, was to read your and Xpartan's links, like this one.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2753861]

Here is Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman's recommendation for how to deal with the Repub's inevitable attempt to blackmail Dems into helping them gut those programs and once again plunge the World into another Great Repub Crash by refusing to pay deadbeat Repubs' bills:

[B]Preparing for Republican Debt Blackmail[/B]

[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/opinion/republican-debt-federal-budget.html[/URL]

Why would refusing to raise the debt limit blow up the economy? In the modern world, U.S. debt plays a crucial role: It is the ultimate safe asset, easily converted into cash, and there are no good alternatives. If investors lose confidence that the U.S. government will honor its obligations, the resulting financial storm will make the recent chaos in Britain look like a passing shower.

So what should be done to avert this threat? If Republicans do gain control of one or both houses in November, Democrats should use the lame-duck session to enact a very large rise in the debt limit, enough to put the issue on ice for years. Republicans and pundits who dont understand the stakes would furiously attack this move, but it would be far better than enabling extortion - and would probably be forgotten by the time of the 2024 election.

If for some reason Democrats dont take this obvious step, the Biden administration should be prepared to turn to legal strategies for bypassing the debt limit. There appear to be several loopholes the administration could exploit minting trillion-dollar platinum coins is the most famous, but there are others, like issuing bonds with no maturity date and hence no face value.[/QUOTE]And this one.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2750987]
[B]In Extraordinary Statement, Trump Stands With Saudis Despite Khashoggi Killing [/B]

[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/world/middleeast/trump-saudi-khashoggi.html[/URL][/QUOTE]And this one.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2748671][B]Why Are Republican Presidents So Bad for the Economy?
G.D.P., jobs and other indicators have all risen faster under Democrats for nearly the past century.
Feb. 2, 2021
[/B]

[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/opinion/sunday/democrats-economy.html[/URL][/QUOTE]And this one.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2747936][B]WHAT CAUSED THE RECESSION
November 24, 1981[/B]

[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/24/business/what-caused-the-recession.html[/URL][/QUOTE]And I could go on. New York Times links appear in 35 of your posts, although a few are quotes of Xpartan.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2768060]Here's what really happens.

Part 1: A Dem president gets elected. Repubs spend 2 years throwing up roadblocks to every bit of legislation the Dems propose. The Repubs point to the "fact" that Dems haven't gotten anything done (they conveniently forget that Repubs were the ones blocking everything). Repubs gain a majority of House and-or Senate. Repubs spend the next 2 years (or up to 6 more years) complaining about how Dems want "open borders" and-or are communist and-or are socialist and-or want to take away your guns and-or a bunch of other stuff.

Part 2: After 4 (or 8) years, a Repub gets elected president because they have convinced the voters that they know what they're doing re: the economy. Repubs have a majority in the House and-or Senate. Repubs pass another voodoo economics tax cut for the rich and spend money like drunken sailors. The economy goes into a tailspin. Repubs are thrown out (after 4 or 8 years) and a Dem is elected president and Dems have control of the House and-or Senate. Dems pass legislation that spends money to assist the economy to pull out of the tailspin. Repubs are now suddenly against spending any money at all even though Repubs just spend 4-to-8 years spending money like drunken sailors.

Go to Part 1.[/QUOTE]

Here's what really happens.

Part 1: A Repub president gets elected. Dems spend 2 years throwing up roadblocks to every bit of legislation the Repubs propose. The Dems point to the "fact" that Repubs haven't gotten anything done (they conveniently forget that Dems were the ones blocking everything). Dems gain a majority of House and-or Senate. Dems spend the next 2 years (or up to 6 more years) complaining about how Repubs want to build a wall and-or want fewer government handouts and-or want to put all the young black men in jail and-or a bunch of other stuff.

Part 2: After 4 (or 8) years, a Dem gets elected president because they have convinced the voters that they know what they're doing re: the economy. Dems have a majority in the House and-or Senate. Dems pass another bunch of voodoo spending bills, largely welfare for corporations and the upper middle class and spend money like drunken sailors. Just look at the 5 trillion in new spending authorized during the first two years of the Biden Administration. Dems are thrown out (after 4 or 8 years) and Repub is elected president and Repubs have control of the House and-or Senate. Repubs pass legislation to cut regulation and taxes that result in the working man actually making some gains instead of falling further and further behind (e.g. 2019). Dems are now pushing harder than ever to spend money like drunken sailors.

Go to Part 1.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2768282]Voting for the Dems is the most effective bothsiderism policy. If you support a shlt party, you gaurantee that the other shlt party will get in straight afterwards.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2768316]You should kneel down every day and thank whatever pro Repub Bothsider gawd you worship that there is a Democratic Party capable of defeating all the winger-rigging and your MSM's pro Repub Bothsiderism as often as possible. Your mythical Third Party fantasy sure won't do it.[/QUOTE]There's your answer JustTK. Your hard core Democrats and Trump Republicans are like true believers of a fundamentalist religion. Good luck convincing them they may be wrong about anything.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2768331]OK, this should work. These are just my repeated posts trying to show you the error of your thinking. I guess you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink from the river of knowledge and truth.

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2743466&viewfull=1#post2743466[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2744566&viewfull=1#post2744566[/URL]

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2747584&viewfull=1#post2747584[/URL].[/QUOTE]Sorry. 100 years of data and blatantly obvious results can not be argued away by nit picking irrelevant nonsense;.

Repub Presidents' favorite economic policies produce crap results while the Dem Presidents' favorite economic policies produce far superior results. Presidents are elected on their stated economic proposals. Once in office, they propose those policies to Congress and expect them to be included in budgets and other legislation. Or they find the veto pen.

If they fail at getting any of it done and the economy goes to shit then I guess they weren't up for the job. I don't know of any POTUS who didn't get any of the economic agenda he ran his campaign on done. And, sure enough, when the Repub gets his way the economy tanks and jobs creation suffers, often badly, but when the Dem gets his way the economy expands and historic numbers of jobs are created.

Name a Repub president of the past 100 years who didn't hand off seriously crap economic conditions to the incoming Dem, usually the country actually IN a verified Recession or Depression, elevated unemployment rates, having either wiped out millions of jobs or produced one of the worst jobs creation records in history.

Neither you nor any of your linked "economists" can. Not one.

Now name an outgoing Dem president of the past 100 years who did the same thing to an incoming Repub.

Nope. You can't.

No amount of tortured math or blind faith in voodoo economics can change the data and rewrite history for you.

BTW, what can I say about the NYT links that are sometimes blocked by Subscription Request pop ups and sometimes not? As I understand it, clearing your Google / Chrome cache allows you to get a certain amount of free views. Maybe that's what I had done recently when I posted those links. And I'll bet the vast majority of the time my NYT link was just one additional one reporting the same real news of other links I provided in order to prove my point, not just one. So those with cleared cache or subscriptions could read those too.

Now, generally when I provide a link to a source, even those NYT links, I will quote a meaningful amount of the text that applies to the point I am making. Hell, even the highlighted in bold titles and headlines I almost always take the trouble to include provide a wealth of information.

You know, like what you didn't do with that collection of URLs for entire pages of posts and entire articles, without even the titles of the articles and pdf files included, on the mistaken assumption that I or anyone else is going to plow through all of it to do all the work for you and make your case for you out of it.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2768369]Here's what really happens.

Part 1: A Repub president gets elected. Dems spend 2 years throwing up roadblocks to every bit of legislation the Repubs propose. The Dems point to the "fact" that Repubs haven't gotten anything done (they conveniently forget that Dems were the ones blocking everything). Dems gain a majority of House and-or Senate. Dems spend the next 2 years (or up to 6 more years) complaining about how Repubs want to build a wall and-or want fewer government handouts and-or want to put all the young black men in jail and-or a bunch of other stuff.

Part 2: After 4 (or 8) years, a Dem gets elected president because they have convinced the voters that they know what they're doing re: the economy. Dems have a majority in the House and-or Senate. Dems pass another bunch of voodoo spending bills, largely welfare for corporations and the upper middle class and spend money like drunken sailors. Just look at the 5 trillion in new spending authorized during the first two years of the Biden Administration. Dems are thrown out (after 4 or 8 years) and Repub is elected president and Repubs have control of the House and-or Senate. Repubs pass legislation to cut regulation and taxes that result in the working man actually making some gains instead of falling further and further behind (e.g. 2019). Dems are now pushing harder than ever to spend money like drunken sailors..[/QUOTE]Dems didn't block Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush1 or even Bush2 from getting much of their agenda passed. I wish they had. But Dems believe in democracy, know elections matter and are often willing to help the Repub who won the election give the American electorate what they asked for when they elected them; crap economic policies and results.

In the case of Trump, crafty Moscow Mitch refused to give Trump anything to sign and pass until the last working day of December in his first year in office because he knew the Repub Trump "economic" record could only be improved by letting him blather on and Do Nothing for as long as possible while he merely coasted on the superior economic conditions he inherited from Obama-Biden and would only suffer by any crap Repub economic legislation crappy enough for him to sign and pass and any other decisions he made.

LOL. Man, did he call that one right!

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2768316]The only reason the shit Repub Party's candidate has gotten into the White House since 1988 is because the winger-rigged SCOTUS or winger-rigged Electoral College system awarded it to them, not because the American voters wanted them anywhere near the place...[/QUOTE]Since 1988, two Republicans, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, have won elections with a majority of the popular vote. And since 1988, two Democrats, Barrack Obama and Joe Biden, won with a majority of the popular vote. Bill Clinton didn't get over 50% either time he ran and won. And George W. Bush didn't get 50% the first time he ran.

I'm not sure whether Donald Trump should be counted as a Republican or a Democrat. He's a Democrat infiltrator of the Republican Party, a former card carrying member of the Democratic Party, and the Democrat's best friend. The Republicans would have won the Senate in 2020 and 2022, and blown out the House in 2022, if not for Trump.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2768060]Here's what really happens.

Part 1: A Dem president gets elected. Repubs spend 2 years throwing up roadblocks to every bit of legislation the Dems propose. The Repubs point to the "fact" that Dems haven't gotten anything done (they conveniently forget that Repubs were the ones blocking everything). Repubs gain a majority of House and-or Senate. Repubs spend the next 2 years (or up to 6 more years) complaining about how Dems want "open borders" and-or are communist and-or are socialist and-or want to take away your guns and-or a bunch of
other stuff.

Part 2: After 4 (or 8) years, a Repub gets elected president because they have convinced the voters that they know what they're doing re: the economy. Repubs have a majority in the House and-or Senate. Repubs pass another voodoo economics tax cut for the rich and spend money like drunken sailors. The economy goes into a tailspin. Repubs are thrown out (after 4 or 8 years) and a Dem is elected president and Dems have control of the House and-or Senate. Dems pass legislation that spends money to assist the economy to pull out of the tailspin. Repubs are now suddenly against spending any money at all even though Repubs just spend 4-to-8 years spending money like drunken sailors.

Go to Part 1.[/QUOTE]

Your assessment is spot on. What you've described (for the uninitiated in US right-wing Repubs/Bothsider politics to subvert democracy and progress), is called the[b] "Two Santa Clauses Theory".[/b]

[b]Thom Hartmann: How the GOP Used a Two Santa Clauses Tactic to Con America for Nearly 40 Years: [/b] [URL]https://www.alternet.org/2018/02/two-santa-clauses-or-how-gop-conned-america-nearly-40-years[/URL]

[QUOTE] ... And, hopefully, some of our media will begin to call the GOP out on the Two Santa Clauses program. Its about time that Americans realized the details of the scam that's been killing wages and enriching billionaires for nearly four decades. [b] --- Thom Hartmann[/b][/QUOTE]

Bravo, Excellent take!!!

[QUOTE=Spidy;2768432]Your assessment is spot on. What you've described (for the uninitiated in US right-wing Repubs/Bothsider politics to subvert democracy and progress), is called the[b] "Two Santa Clauses Theory".[/b]

[b]Thom Hartmann: How the GOP Used a Two Santa Clauses Tactic to Con America for Nearly 40 Years: [/b] [URL]https://www.alternet.org/2018/02/two-santa-clauses-or-how-gop-conned-america-nearly-40-years[/URL]



Bravo, Excellent take!!![/QUOTE]I listen to Thom Hartmann on Sirius XM while driving from time to time, as he's the must articulate of the Progressive Democratic Party hack pundits. Actually I listen to him a lot more than all the right of center radio talk show hosts combined. Hartmann's an apologist for Venezuela. Venez fucking uela!

"Deficit Trends" about 2/3rds of the way down the following is a much more balanced breakdown.

[URL]https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/presidents-as-economic-managers[/URL]

The writer, an economist, lambasts the George W. Bush administration for the Iraq war and the effect on the national debt, as he well should.

Otherwise, both parties spend like drunken sailors, and the Democrats are somewhat worse.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2768406]Since 1988, two Republicans, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, have won elections with a majority of the popular vote. And since 1988, two Democrats, Barrack Obama and Joe Biden, won with a majority of the popular vote. Bill Clinton didn't get over 50% either time he ran and won. And George W. Bush didn't get 50% the first time he ran.

I'm not sure whether Donald Trump should be counted as a Republican or a Democrat. He's a Democrat infiltrator of the Republican Party, a former card carrying member of the Democratic Party, and the Democrat's best friend. The Republicans would have won the Senate in 2020 and 2022, and blown out the House in 2022, if not for Trump.[/QUOTE]GHW Bush didn't win the vote "since" 1988. He won the vote "in" 1988.

By Majority or Plurality, either one is the winner of the actual vote.

LOL. When Reagan's classic Repub policies and stewardship produced a horrific Great Repub Recession, tripled the debt, skyrocketed the unemployment rate and the deficit, Repubs and pro Repub Bothsiders tried to float that same bit and disavow him as the classic Repub icon he was.

Yeah, Reagan had been a Dem once upon a time just like Trump. And, just like Trump, the minute he decided to see if a shot at politics would boost his profile and repair his bank account, his lifelong observations of the two parties convinced him the Repub Party was the party where his celebrity and name recognition could excel and payoff; sleep til Noon, ride ponies, know nothing, do very little, his crap results would be applauded and spun into election winning advantage by Mainstream Media, etc while being a Dem meant he'd actually have to know something, do something, work hard, produce positive results and never expect accolades or positive spin for it in Mainstream Media.

There is no way those two "actors" could cut it as a Dem if they entered the world of politics and they knew it.

Then, as Repubs their policies and stewardship were classic Repub Supply-Side / Trickle-Down idiocy combined with classic disdain and reduction of regulations leading directly to classic Repub results; making the already wealthy even wealthier at the great expense of everyone else, crashing the economy, skyrocketing unemployment rates and deficits, middling private sector jobs creation at best or catastrophic job losses by the millions at worst.

Reagan and Trump are the classic Repub icons of icons.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2768383]Name a Repub president of the past 100 years who didn't hand off seriously crap economic conditions to the incoming Dem, usually the country actually IN a verified Recession or Depression, elevated unemployment rates, having either wiped out millions of jobs or produced one of the worst jobs creation records in history.

Neither you nor any of your linked "economists" can. Not one.

Now name an outgoing Dem president of the past 100 years who did the same thing to an incoming Repub.
[/QUOTE]You've got it backwards. Presidents who inherit weak economies go onto see better performance during their term, and vice versa. See the table in Riedl's paper, "Inherited Economy and Presidential Performance On Jobs", linked below. The party the president belongs to has little or nothing to do with performance of the economy during his term, except via coincidence.

It's called the business cycle.

But I'll play along with your game. My graph of employment and recessions just goes back to about 1948. During that time Truman, Carter and Clinton all left Republicans with recessions that started during the final fiscal year of government that was budgeted and began during the Democrat Presidents' terms. Johnson missed doing the same by about three months. But of course you're going to poo poo that. Given Tooms' rules, the Republicans end up with the blame for the recessions, that purportedly resulted from the policies and budgets set by the Democrats. Meanwhile the Democrats receive the credit for the better times that preceded them.

I say purportedly because, again, I believe the party of the President has little to do with economic performance.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2768383] You know, like what you didn't do with that collection of URLs for entire pages of posts and entire articles, without even the titles of the articles and pdf files included, on the mistaken assumption that I or anyone else is going to plow through all of it to do all the work for you and make your case for you out of it. [/QUOTE]You already wrote or read every one of the links. There's no need to read them. Just be aware we've about beat this horse to death. And you're still wrong.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2768466]You've got it backwards. Presidents who inherit weak economies go onto see better performance during their term, and vice versa. See the table in Riedl's paper, "Inherited Economy and Presidential Performance On Jobs", linked below. The party the president belongs to has little or nothing to do with performance of the economy during his term, except via coincidence.

It's called the business cycle.

But I'll play along with your game. My graph of employment and recessions just goes back to about 1948. During that time Truman, Carter and Clinton all left Republicans with recessions that started during the final fiscal year of government that was budgeted and began during the Democrat Presidents' terms. Johnson missed doing the same by about three months. But of course you're going to poo poo that. Given Tooms' rules, the Republicans end up with the blame for the recessions, that purportedly resulted from the policies and budgets set by the Democrats. Meanwhile the Democrats receive the credit for the better times that preceded them.

I say purportedly because, again, I believe the party of the President has little to do with economic performance.

You already wrote or read every one of the links. There's no need to read them. Just be aware we've about beat this horse to death. And you're still wrong.[/QUOTE]Truman, Carter and Clinton didn't leave anyone a recession. Stop making up stuff.

In the past century, Hoover, Eisenhower, Bush1, Bush2 and Trump did.

[B]List of recessions in the United States[/B]

[URL]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States[/URL]

Interesting highly partisan "business cycle" you've got stuck in your mind. The crap cycles, especially the spectacularly bad crap cycles, only occur at the end of Repub presidential terms when they come at the end and never at the end of Dem presidential terms whether the end of those terms come after 4 years, 8 years or in party sequential terms, 12 years or 20 years.

Which begs the question, how do those highly partisan "business cycles" know?!

Look, if it rankles you and your "economists" that the historical economic record favors Dems and punishes Repubs because those lucky Dems get to take over right when the outgoing Repub's economy is crashing down around our ears, millions of jobs are being wiped out and, goodness gracious, all the beautifully well-timed incoming POTUS of any party but always seems to be Dems needs to do is flip a magic light switch, go ride ponies or play golf and, as sure as night follows day, that miraculous "business cycle" will do all the work to recover the economy, instill confidence in brave free market Capitalists and business owners, create millions of jobs to recover the millions lost and all within just 2-3 months, here is the fix for what ails you:

Tell your beloved Repubs to stop promoting and enacting classic Repub policies and stewardship that produces those crap results that greet the incoming Dems over and over and over again in the first place.

[QUOTE=Tiny 12;2768441]I listen to Thom Hartmann on Sirius XM while driving from time to time, as he's the must articulate of the Progressive Democratic Party hack pundits. Actually I listen to him a lot more than all the right of center radio talk show hosts combined. Hartmann's an apologist for Venezuela. Venez fucking uela!

"Deficit Trends" about 2/3rds of the way down the following is a much more balanced breakdown.

[URL]https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/presidents-as-economic-managers[/URL]

The writer, an economist, lambasts the George W. Bush administration for the Iraq war and the effect on the national debt, as he well should.

Otherwise, both parties spend like drunken sailors, and the Democrats are somewhat worse.[/QUOTE]


Typical response to try and normalize and "bothsider" the corrupt and dysfunctional party that is now basically/predominately a QAnon/Repub/Bothersider looney-tunes conspiracy party, hell bent on subverting democracy, the rule of law and The US Constitution.

The "Two Santa Clause" theory clearly has the [b]Repubs[/b], spending like drunken sailors to [b]enrich themselves and their billionaire cronies[/b] and the other party (the Dems) clearly spending money to benefit and stimulate a stagnant and recessive economy, typically decimated and left-for-dead by Repubs, with their ill-fated trickle-down economics.

Yep, your article is just more bothersidesism. But I did like the following quote:
[QUOTE] ... What's more, [b]presidents do not control the business cycle[/b], even if the business cycle plays a part in the outcomes of presidential elections. ...

[URL]https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/presidents-as-economic-managers[/URL][/QUOTE] And yet numbskull Rebubs were all over Biden for the price of gasoline. (...kkkk!)

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2768369]Here's what really happens.

Part 1: A Repub president gets elected. Dems spend 2 years throwing up roadblocks to every bit of legislation the Repubs propose. The Dems point to the "fact" that Repubs haven't gotten anything done (they conveniently forget that Dems were the ones blocking everything). Dems gain a majority of House and-or Senate. Dems spend the next 2 years (or up to 6 more years) complaining about how Repubs want to build a wall and-or want fewer government handouts and-or want to put all the young black men in jail and-or a bunch of other stuff.

Part 2: After 4 (or 8) years, a Dem gets elected president because they have convinced the voters that they know what they're doing re: the economy. Dems have a majority in the House and-or Senate. Dems pass another bunch of voodoo spending bills, largely welfare for corporations and the upper middle class and spend money like drunken sailors. Just look at the 5 trillion in new spending authorized during the first two years of the Biden Administration. Dems are thrown out (after 4 or 8 years) and Repub is elected president and Repubs have control of the House and-or Senate. Repubs pass legislation to cut regulation and taxes that result in the working man actually making some gains instead of falling further and further behind (e.g. 2019). Dems are now pushing harder than ever to spend money like drunken sailors.

Go to Part 1.[/QUOTE]If you believe this, you'd actually have proof. But you don't. As usual.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2768406]Since 1988, two Republicans, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, have won elections with a majority of the popular vote. And since 1988, two Democrats, Barrack Obama and Joe Biden, won with a majority of the popular vote. Bill Clinton didn't get over 50% either time he ran and won. And George W. Bush didn't get 50% the first time he ran.

I'm not sure whether Donald Trump should be counted as a Republican or a Democrat. He's a Democrat infiltrator of the Republican Party, a former card carrying member of the Democratic Party, and the Democrat's best friend. The Republicans would have won the Senate in 2020 and 2022, and blown out the House in 2022, if not for Trump.[/QUOTE]That shows a different thing, doesn't it?

1988 - Bush 1 received more votes than Dukakis.

1992 - Slick Willie received more votes than Bush 1.

1996 - Slick Willie received more votes than Dole.

2000 - W received FEWER votes than Gore.

2004 - W received more votes than Kerry.

2008 - Obama received more votes than McCain.

2012 - Obama received more votes than Romney.

2016 - Donnie the Dumbass received FEWER votes than Clinton.

2020 - Biden received more votes than Donnie the Dumbass.

The only two Presidents who didn't win the popular vote since 1988 were W and Donnie the Dumbass.

[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin[/URL]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2768674]That shows a different thing, doesn't it?

1988 - Bush 1 received more votes than Dukakis.

1992 - Slick Willie received more votes than Bush 1.

1996 - Slick Willie received more votes than Dole.

2000 - W received FEWER votes than Gore.

2004 - W received more votes than Kerry.

2008 - Obama received more votes than McCain.

2012 - Obama received more votes than Romney.

2016 - Donnie the Dumbass received FEWER votes than Clinton.

2020 - Biden received more votes than Donnie the Dumbass.

The only two Presidents who didn't win the popular vote since 1988 were W and Donnie the Dumbass.

[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin[/URL][/QUOTE]It likely would have been a straight 8 for 8 losers on actual votes for the Repubs if W hadn't been awarded the presidency in 2000 by a winger-rigged SCOTUS stopping the count in Florida in a panic before his dwindling 535 vote lead evaporated. It was only because of his colossal National Security negligence and hundreds of lies to bamboozle us into 3 wrong-headed quagmire wars during his winger SCOTUS-appointed term that he was able to squeak out a narrow win for his 2nd run as a "Wartime President".

Those were two of the worst individual presidential term results of all time on the basis of National Security and the economy. Surpassed on horrific results only by Trump's one term.

Really great discussion on the Lex Fridman show on distribution, ;pipelines, transport, trucking, rail etc. Issues and future.

Long show but great listening:

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Wpy6gE4So[/URL]

Great presentation on the history of monopolies in USA (first 40 mins only). Causes and effects:
[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8DNC8uCmVM[/URL]

Further proof of the sqeezing of the middle class.

Ya know there's something to having everything going for you in this world in a given situation. That would be Brittney Grinder, she's female, black, lesbian, and refused to stand for the national anthem. All the boxes are checked. Is there anything missing? I'm all in with Fox on this one, and that's what makes me a moderate. What an embarrassment.

[URL]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XxK6XJCRXL8[/URL]

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2769683]Ya know there's something to having everything going for you in this world in a given situation. That would be Brittney Grinder, she's female, black, lesbian, and refused to stand for the national anthem. All the boxes are checked. Is there anything missing? I'm all in with Fox on this one, and that's what makes me a moderate. What an embarrassment.

[URL]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XxK6XJCRXL8[/URL][/QUOTE]FUX Snooze and the rest of rightwingnut media are all aflutter over the apparent favoritism shown by the Biden Administration. According to them, Biden chose Griner over Whelan. BS.

Do some critical thinking for god's sake. Who held all of the cards here, Russia or the USA? Russia did. I repeat, Russia did. And Russia was offering a one-for-one swap of Griner for about. Period. Did the Biden administration ask for more? Who knows. My guess is yes but I don't know.

The second issue is Whelan himself. FUX Snooze and the rest of rightwingnut media simply says "Whelan was a former Marine" and the Moron Brigade goes crazy. What FUX Snooze and the rest don't say is that [B]Whelan was dishonorably discharged from the Marines because he was convicted of stealing by a court martial[/B].

The third issue is that even though about was released, about had served 10 years of his 25 year sentence plus he had all of his assets confiscated by the government.

The fourth issue is even simpler. Russia was offering a one-for-one swap of Griner for about. Would you have told Russia "Hey go, pound sand. We want Whelan back and if we don't get that, you can keep' them both"?

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2769683]Ya know there's something to having everything going for you in this world in a given situation. That would be Brittney Grinder, she's female, black, lesbian, and refused to stand for the national anthem. All the boxes are checked. Is there anything missing? I'm all in with Fox on this one, and that's what makes me a moderate. What an embarrassment.

[URL]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XxK6XJCRXL8[/URL][/QUOTE]It's illegal in the USA to pay ransom for kidnappings, because if the bad guys figure they can't get paid, they won't kidnap people in the first place. Well, Biden just did exactly the opposite. Now every country in the world knows it can just grab some Americans under false or greatly exaggerated pretenses to use as currency for extortion. Which is exactly what they did with Greiner. She should have gotten 15 days or less in a Russian jail based on the quantity of hash oil she was carrying.

Biden just released a man who allegedly supplied arms to our enemies, including al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and to numerous other groups and countries in the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Tens of thousands, perhaps more, have died in West Africa and the Congo from arms sold and/or transported by Viktor Bout.

And who did we get for his release? A basketball player. A fucking basketball player. Biden's motivation to do this was purely political. Blacks, women, and the LGBT community overwhelmingly voted for Biden, and Greiner tics all three boxes. You said as much.

And how about Paul Whelan? Well, same deal, except that he probably didn't deserve so much as a fine or a single night in a jail cell. He was set up. Otherwise, why would the FSB agent who slipped him the USB drive, Ilya Yatsenko, end up with a promotion instead of incarceration in a jail cell? Yeah, you can make the argument that we set up Viktor Bout too. The difference is that one of the gentlemen was responsible for many deaths and was arming our enemies. And the other (Whelan) was a nobody.

We shouldn't have released Bout for Whelan either. So good for Trump for not giving in to blackmail.

"I turned down a deal with Russia for a one on one swap of the so-called Merchant of Death for Paul Whelan. I wouldn’t have made the deal for a hundred people in exchange for someone that has killed untold numbers of people with his arms deals."

-- Donald J. Trump on Truth Social

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2769903]FUX Snooze and the rest of rightwingnut media are all aflutter over the apparent favoritism shown by the Biden Administration. According to them, Biden chose Griner over Whelan. BS.

Do some critical thinking for god's sake. Who held all of the cards here, Russia or the USA? Russia did. I repeat, Russia did. And Russia was offering a one-for-one swap of Griner for about. Period. Did the Biden administration ask for more? Who knows. My guess is yes but I don't know.

The second issue is Whelan himself. FUX Snooze and the rest of rightwingnut media simply says "Whelan was a former Marine" and the Moron Brigade goes crazy. What FUX Snooze and the rest don't say is that [B]Whelan was dishonorably discharged from the Marines because he was convicted of stealing by a court martial[/B].

The third issue is that even though about was released, about had served 10 years of his 25 year sentence plus he had all of his assets confiscated by the government.

The fourth issue is even simpler. Russia was offering a one-for-one swap of Griner for about. Would you have told Russia "Hey go, pound sand. We want Whelan back and if we don't get that, you can keep' them both"?[/QUOTE]As usual, FUX News and other Trump-loving, Biden-bashing wingers have almost none of the facts in this exchange right.

And now we have them and Trump, the absolute worst negotiator supposedly on behalf of the USA of all time, hopping up and down and screeching about how Whelan was the real Grand Prize hostage we should have gotten released or all that is worth living for in America will evaporate!

Which, as all great winger negotiators like Trump et al knows, is the very best position of strength to be in for that eventual negotiation. LOL.

Bunch of numbskulls.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2768669]If you believe this, you'd actually have proof. But you don't. As usual.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2768674]That shows a different thing, doesn't it?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Spidy;2768664]Typical response to try and normalize and "bothsider" the corrupt and dysfunctional party that is now basically/predominately a QAnon/Repub/Bothersider looney-tunes conspiracy party, hell bent on subverting democracy, the rule of law and The US Constitution.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2768544]Truman, Carter and Clinton didn't leave anyone a recession. Stop making up stuff.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2768461]GHW Bush didn't win the vote "since" 1988. He won the vote "in" 1988.[/QUOTE]Gentlemen, Thanks for your kind replies. There are flaws in your facts and analysis. Through the past several months, I've discovered there are not enough hours in the day to reply to them all. And besides, I am but a tiny LED light, amidst the bonfire of misinformation that you're bombarded with by your favored media sources every day. Finally, I cannot fight this battle alone, and all the right of center posters have left this forum.

I'll check back from time to time. In particular I've enjoyed some of JustTK's out-of-the-box contributions. And the rest of you have brought up some good points from time to time. And broadened my thinking. A little bit.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2770214]Gentlemen, Thanks for your kind replies. There are flaws in your facts and analysis. Through the past several months, I've discovered there are not enough hours in the day to reply to them all. And besides, I am but a tiny LED light, amidst the bonfire of misinformation that you're bombarded with by your favored media sources every day. Finally, I cannot fight this battle alone, and all the right of center posters have left this forum.

I'll check back from time to time. In particular I've enjoyed some of JustTK's out-of-the-box contributions. And the rest of you have brought up some good points from time to time. And broadened my thinking. A little bit.[/QUOTE]Are you sure you don't want to just rest up from all of your post-2022 midterm gloating over that Red Tinkle so you'll have plenty of strength on hand for the post-2024 Red Tinkle gloating?

Maybe that's what all those other gloating-exhausted wingers disappeared to rest up for.

I do hope Elvis returns to the building by Christmas Eve so we can compare Trump's S&P 500 Index and DOW performance vs that of Biden from election / nauguration to this same point in their presidency so he can explain why his trusted formula and yield curves didn't have him short the market when Trump was elected or took office like he did with Biden.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2768664]The "Two Santa Clause" theory clearly has the [b]Repubs[/b], spending like drunken sailors to [b]enrich themselves and their billionaire cronies[/b] and the other party (the Dems) clearly spending money to benefit and stimulate a stagnant and recessive economy, typically decimated and left-for-dead by Repubs, with their ill-fated trickle-down economics.[/QUOTE]Dems good, Republicans bad huh? Where we do send you your copy of 1984? How much of the federal budget is not earmarked for nonpartisan entitlements? 10%? 20%? Yeesh.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2768664]And yet numbskull Rebubs were all over Biden for the price of gasoline. (...kkkk!)[/QUOTE]Oh yeah, how about some facts to go along with this? Tapping the SPR? Letting Venezuela produce more oil? Begging the Saudis to produce more after condemning them as monsters? Pissing off American oil companies by saying you are going to put them out of business?

I actually looked into the STEO at the EIA website after you posted this. The most amazing part was seeing Russia. The war was the catalyst for higher prices, and despite all the USA and European blubbering about boycotting Russian crude, their production is not down by one iota. China is just now getting out of Covid lockdown, and they are the #2 consumer of oil. On top of that, prices on diesel are still sky high. Yeah, prices are down on gasoline and except for draining the SPR, what does Biden have to do with that?

Apparently, American oil producers are gearing up to produce like nuts in 2023 which is great news. I am not sure if it is the Republicans controlling the house or Biden privately telling them to go ahead. Yeah, for all your bullshit talk about Republicans kissing corporate America's ass, the oil companies have been killing it under Biden.

I like Obama's policies where oil companies produced like crazy got oil and gasoline prices down and made less money than they are now. With Biden, oil production has barely moved, prices are up, and oil companies are making record profits. So which president's oil policies do you prefer, Spidy, Biden's or Obama's?

[blue][Deleted by Admin][/blue] Does your head explode with anything outside of Republicans bad, Democrats good?

So just to be clear, I wanted Biden to go back to Obama's policies, and your sorry ass had to bring up Republicans. Gee, I wonder why that is.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2770214] In particular I've enjoyed some of JustTK's out-of-the-box contributions. And the rest of you have brought up some good points from time to time. And broadened my thinking. A little bit.[/QUOTE]Take care Tiny. Nice to read your thoughst too. You won't miss much. This section is dead unless they can bash Chump for smthg.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2770253]Dems good, Republicans bad huh? Where we do send you your copy of 1984? How much of the federal budget is not earmarked for nonpartisan entitlements? 10%? 20%? Yeesh.

Oh yeah, how about some facts to go along with this? Tapping the SPR? Letting Venezuela produce more oil? Begging the Saudis to produce more after condemning them as monsters? Pissing off American oil companies by saying you are going to put them out of business?

I actually looked into the STEO at the EIA website after you posted this. The most amazing part was seeing Russia. The war was the catalyst for higher prices, and despite all the USA and European blubbering about boycotting Russian crude, their production is not down by one iota. China is just now getting out of Covid lockdown, and they are the #2 consumer of oil. On top of that, prices on diesel are still sky high. Yeah, prices are down on gasoline and except for draining the SPR, what does Biden have to do with that?

Apparently, American oil producers are gearing up to produce like nuts in 2023 which is great news. I am not sure if it is the Republicans controlling the house or Biden privately telling them to go ahead. Yeah, for all your bullshit talk about Republicans kissing corporate America's ass, the oil companies have been killing it under Biden.

I like Obama's policies where oil companies produced like crazy got oil and gasoline prices down and made less money than they are now. With Biden, oil production has barely moved, prices are up, and oil companies are making record profits. So which president's oil policies do you prefer, Spidy, Biden's or Obama's?

Does your head explode with anything outside of Republicans bad, Democrats good?

So just to be clear, I wanted Biden to go back to Obama's policies, and your sorry ass had to bring up Republicans. Gee, I wonder why that is.[/QUOTE]When Bush 2 was in office in 2008, gasoline hit $4 per gallon. Repubs went on every talk show they could find to say that the president was not responsible for the price of gasoline. In fact, only a fool would believe that once COVID (virtually) ended, that we wouldn't see massive inflation due to demand outpacing supply and the COVID-related supply chain issues. And what happened? Massive inflation! Inflation would have happened regardless of who was in the White House. Inflation would have happened if (God forbid) the US would have elected Donnie the Dumbass again.

But, with the Repubs in control of the House, we can get ready for 2 years of angertainment from them. They'll investigate every Democrat whose name they can spell (and with tRUMPettes leading the way, I expect a lot of misspellings {like the moron who called for Donnie the Dumbass to implement 'Marshall Law' they'll try to impeach President Biden because he stutters sometimes, they'll shut down the Government over some cockamamie BS or another and then blame the Dems for failing to go along with their cockamamie BS.

But here's the thing. You Repubs bay at the moon over "Dems good, Repubs bad" as it that's all there is to it. It isn't. Repubs have done a few things right (like the Interstate Highway system) and lots of stuff wrong (China tariffs, "trickle-down economics", tax cuts for the rich). Dems have done lots of stuff right (Social Security, Civil Rights act, GI Bill, the Affordable Care Act) and some stuff wrong (the Affordable Care Act). But, in general, Dems want America to get better while Repubs want America to stay the same.

The demographics of America are changing. America is becoming less white, less homophobic, less xenophobic and less misogynistic. But instead of embracing that inevitability, Repubs are pandering to their mostly-white and mostly-older and mostly-non-college-degreed base and telling them to be afraid of anybody who isn't white, anybody who is LGBTQ+ and anybody who is an immigrant. It reminds me of several lines from the movie "The American President" where the President holds a press conference and talks about his opponent. "he is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and character. " If you've never seen the movie, here's the link. I suggest that you watch it over-and-over again until you understand what he's saying. [URL]https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechtheamericanpresident.html[/URL].

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2770251]
I do hope Elvis returns to the building by Christmas Eve so we can compare Trump's S&P 500 Index and DOW performance vs that of Biden from election / nauguration to this same point in their presidency so he can explain why his trusted formula and yield curves didn't have him short the market when Trump was elected or took office like he did with Biden.[/QUOTE]You have a sample size of two years to show that your presidential model is bullshit. The market went up in 2021 when the Fed and Congress were pouring money into the economy, and it sucked in 2022 when the Fed was pulling money out. Duh. Right now, the bond market is predicting recession and later today Powell will probably say that he is going to keep the money supply tight. This has nothing, I repeat, nothing to do with Biden.

To a censorship loving, civil rights hating, binary fool like yourself, the pandemic was all Trump's fault, and the Democratic governors had nothing to do with shutting down supply chains. Instead of passing on blame, I say everyone was responsible for the supply chain issues that resulted from the lockdowns and the subsequent inflation that followed. So unlike you douches with your Democrat good, Republican bad binary view of the world, I was saying the only part of inflation that I could lie at Biden's feet, and it was not all of it, was that he was partially responsible for higher energy prices because he kept knee capping American oil companies.

Still, we have all grown accustomed to you Tooms. Biden was president in both 2021 and 2022 so obviously the great market year in 2021 was due to Biden and the horrible market year in 2022 was due to Trump.

What you are not capable of doing is condemning Biden for this down year which is what you would have to do if you want anyone to believe your dumb theory that markets move to whom is president.

If you remember what I said, a president is like a referee in a game. He cannot create a good game but he can sure as hell screw one up. To that end, Biden is brain dead, the worst since GWB at least and probably worse than that. IMO you have to go back to Carter to find someone this bad.

When you have inflation, the correct move is to cut back on spending not spend like a drunken sailor as Biden has been doing. Biden is so stupid he said government spending does not cause inflation while everyone he put on the federal reserve is doing all they can to cut spending / demand to tame inflation.

If you want a Biden compliment, take that. At least Biden put economic advisers in place smarter than his stupid ass.

[QUOTE=Elvis 2008;2770253][Deleted by Admin] Does your head explode with anything outside of Republicans bad, Democrats good? [/QUOTE]
Not surprising or shocking, coming from a typical Elvis vitriolic rant. Repubs/Bothersidesism, once again [b]attacking the messenger and not the message.[/b] Is it any wonder a good number of your responses, to other BMs are deleted?

[QUOTE=Elvis 2008;2770253]Dems good, Republicans bad huh? Where we do send you your copy of 1984? ... [/QUOTE]
[u]What do you think? Ask yourself this: [/u]

Which party is it, that denies peoples rights and taking the America back to the dark ages with their backwards, archaic and ancient policies from a bygone Neanderthal era?

Which party is it, that are simply nihilists, election deniers, hell bent on subverting democracy, the rule of law and The US Constitution?

[QUOTE=Elvis 2008;2770253]... So which president's oil policies do you prefer, Spidy, Biden's or Obama's? ... [/QUOTE]

Elvis, I'm not so myopic and centrist focused on oil and gas, like Repubs (bending over, pandering to their big oil & gas donors), but more aligned with Obama and Biden's, balanced approach to US National Energy security, that focused less on oil & gas (despite staunch Repub opposition), but also more focused towards cleaner/renewable technologies.

By and large, Democrat administrations, in their more balanced approach to energy security, have been more forward thinking and progressive towards a cleaner energy future, by funding cleaner and renewable energy technologies and did not give up on supporting things like sustainable [b]fusion[/b], as exemplified in the latest fusion energy breakthrough, which is being hailed as clean energy game-changer (albeit, only some 10 to 20 years away, before large scale project plants are realized).

Your question, is a very apt and timely question, given the recent breakthrough of fusion. Perhaps now, even die-hard oil & gas Repubs (and some Dems), will be weaned-off their hard stance on fossil-fuels (but I doubt it!). BTW, I'm not saying oil & gas is going away (we still need it), just our massive dependency on it and the ability of foreign oil & gas dictators/producers to hold the US hostage.

Elvis, even you can see the efforts by the Dems, to fund these energy technologies, [b]is indeed a [u]BFD!!![/u][/b]

[QUOTE=Spidy;2770661]
Which party is it, that denies peoples rights and taking the America back to the dark ages with their backwards, archaic and ancient policies from a bygone Neanderthal era?

Which party is it, that are simply nihilists, election deniers, hell bent on subverting democracy, the rule of law and The US Constitution?[/QUOTE]So to answer my question, you cannot make one post that is not Republicans bad, Democrats good. Got it.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2770661]Elvis, I'm not so myopic and centrist focused on oil and gas, like Repubs (bending over, pandering to their big oil & gas donors), but more aligned with Obama and Biden's, balanced approach to US National Energy security, that focused less on oil & gas (despite staunch Repub opposition), but also more focused towards cleaner/renewable technologies.[/QUOTE]So Obama and Biden's policies were the same? Got it.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2770661]Your question, is a very apt and timely question, given the recent breakthrough of fusion.[/QUOTE]LOL. Tell me how that changes anything. How many people have died due to the waste from nuclear fission?

[QUOTE=Spidy;2770661]BTW, I'm not saying oil & gas is going away (we still need it), just our massive dependency on it and the ability of foreign oil & gas dictators/producers to hold the US hostage.[/QUOTE]Massive dependency huh? Yeesh.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2770661]Elvis, even you can see the efforts by the Dems, to fund these energy technologies, [b]is indeed a [u]BFD!!![/u][/b][/QUOTE]Yeah, the fusion break throughs were all Dems, and all the taxpayer money spent on fusion technology came from Democrats too right?

I would ask you about Jimmy Carter's energy policy in comparison to Ronald Reagan's but I already know your answer, so I won't bother.

Spidy, can you post anything outside of Dems good, Republicans bad?

Hell, you can stop posting because we all know what you are going to say anyway.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2770636]You have a sample size of two years to show that your presidential model is bullshit. The market went up in 2021 when the Fed and Congress were pouring money into the economy, and it sucked in 2022 when the Fed was pulling money out. Duh. Right now, the bond market is predicting recession and later today Powell will probably say that he is going to keep the money supply tight. This has nothing, I repeat, nothing to do with Biden.

To a censorship loving, civil rights hating, binary fool like yourself, the pandemic was all Trump's fault, and the Democratic governors had nothing to do with shutting down supply chains. Instead of passing on blame, I say everyone was responsible for the supply chain issues that resulted from the lockdowns and the subsequent inflation that followed. So unlike you douches with your Democrat good, Republican bad binary view of the world, I was saying the only part of inflation that I could lie at Biden's feet, and it was not all of it, was that he was partially responsible for higher energy prices because he kept knee capping American oil companies.

Still, we have all grown accustomed to you Tooms. Biden was president in both 2021 and 2022 so obviously the great market year in 2021 was due to Biden and the horrible market year in 2022 was due to Trump.

What you are not capable of doing is condemning Biden for this down year which is what you would have to do if you want anyone to believe your dumb theory that markets move to whom is president.

If you remember what I said, a president is like a referee in a game. He cannot create a good game but he can sure as hell screw one up. To that end, Biden is brain dead, the worst since GWB at least and probably worse than that. IMO you have to go back to Carter to find someone this bad.

When you have inflation, the correct move is to cut back on spending not spend like a drunken sailor as Biden has been doing. Biden is so stupid he said government spending does not cause inflation while everyone he put on the federal reserve is doing all they can to cut spending / demand to tame inflation.

If you want a Biden compliment, take that. At least Biden put economic advisers in place smarter than his stupid ass.[/QUOTE]Unless the incoming Redrawn Districts Red Tinkle Repubs somehow manage to shut down the USA Government to fuck up Biden's historic recovery, roaring economy and unnecessarily spook the hell out of the stock market before they even find their butts to put in the seats, the USA Stock Market as typically measured by the S&P 500 Index will have produced almost TWICE the gains at this stage of Biden's presidency as it did under Trump at this same stage of his so-called presidency. The DOW gains are virtually identical.

And for anyone wanting to calculate back to each election day rather than from inauguration day, bear in mind Biden's post-election Goodbye Trump relief rally from election day to the inauguration was one of the greatest of all time:

[B]Bidens Post-Election Stock Market Is Trouncing Trumps[/B]

[URL]https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2021/12/31/bidens-post-election-stock-market-is-trouncing-trumps/[/URL]

So I think some of us are wondering if you shorted the market in November of 2020 or January of 2021. If not, I guess your formulas and yield curves failed you.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2770253]Dems good, Republicans bad huh? Where we do send you your copy of 1984? How much of the federal budget is not earmarked for nonpartisan entitlements? 10%? 20%? Yeesh.

Oh yeah, how about some facts to go along with this? Tapping the SPR? Letting Venezuela produce more oil? Begging the Saudis to produce more after condemning them as monsters? Pissing off American oil companies by saying you are going to put them out of business?

I actually looked into the STEO at the EIA website after you posted this. The most amazing part was seeing Russia. The war was the catalyst for higher prices, and despite all the USA and European blubbering about boycotting Russian crude, their production is not down by one iota. China is just now getting out of Covid lockdown, and they are the #2 consumer of oil. On top of that, prices on diesel are still sky high. Yeah, prices are down on gasoline and except for draining the SPR, what does Biden have to do with that?

Apparently, American oil producers are gearing up to produce like nuts in 2023 which is great news. I am not sure if it is the Republicans controlling the house or Biden privately telling them to go ahead. Yeah, for all your bullshit talk about Republicans kissing corporate America's ass, the oil companies have been killing it under Biden.

I like Obama's policies where oil companies produced like crazy got oil and gasoline prices down and made less money than they are now. With Biden, oil production has barely moved, prices are up, and oil companies are making record profits. So which president's oil policies do you prefer, Spidy, Biden's or Obama's?

Does your head explode with anything outside of Republicans bad, Democrats good?

So just to be clear, I wanted Biden to go back to Obama's policies, and your sorry ass had to bring up Republicans. Gee, I wonder why that is.[/QUOTE]Funny you bring up 1984. I read today it's the #1 best selling fiction title in Russia right now, and #2 overall. A Russian government functionary said it's a great description of what's going on in the decadent West right now.

Yes, the contrast between Obama's oil and gas policy and Biden's was extreme. Obama bragged about increasing production. Biden called for reducing net carbon emissions from electricity generation to "0" by 2035, which is absolutely nuts. It would rule out using natural gas for power generation. And he wanted to go to net zero for oil too by 2050. He campaigned on shutting down drilling on federal lands and federal offshore leases. But this of course has all gone by the wayside for the time being, as political considerations trump everything else.

There was an article in the Financial Times a few days ago that quotes Biden's chief energy adviser, Amos Hochstein. Hochstein said USA Oil investors are "un-American" because they're not ramping up drilling. WTF? Biden wants to put the natural gas producers out of business by 2035, and the oil producers out of business by 2050. No oil and gas company is going to invest for the long term if it believes Biden and likeminded Democrats will rule the roost for the foreseeable future. And what if our federal government comes to be controlled by people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom said they wanted to immediately ban fracking when they were campaigning for president? Meanwhile, Biden is promoting the idea of a Windfall Profits Tax. We know what effect that would have, based on our experience in the 1980's.

Thank goodness Biden and Sanders Democrats haven't controlled government for the last 10 years. If they had been, we'd be in the same shape as Europe right now.

It might take a 10 year lead time to develop a project in the Gulf of Mexico. By the time it goes on stream I guess you have a year or two before you have to shut it down if it's producing from a gas field, if we're going to achieve Biden's goal. And apparently now if you're not willing to go bankrupt to achieve Democrats' short term political goal of keeping oil and gas prices low when the next election comes around, you're unpatriotic. All this after the Biden administration did its best to discourage private equity, Wall Street and even banks from stumping up more money for drilling.

As to your point about Diesel, it's about as close to heating oil as you can get, in terms of the properties of refined products. And people in the Northeast who are dependent on heating oil to heat their homes are going to be in for a very expensive winter. If Democrats had allowed construction of more natural gas pipelines to the Northeast and California, the residents of those areas would be in much better shape. I was talking with a natural gas executive this evening, and he told me gas in the Four Corners area, which feeds California, is going for $45/ MMBTU right now, because of the lack of pipeline capacity! As you know, gas in our part of the world is selling for more like $6 an MMBTU. It sounds like California may be fucked as bad as Europe this winter. He didn't expect the price to let up appreciably.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2770722]
...
Spidy, can you post anything outside of Dems good, Republicans bad?

Hell, you can stop posting because we all know what you are going to say anyway.[/QUOTE]Well, it would be so much easier for Spidy and the rest of us to do that if only Repubs would for the love of gawd stop producing the worst results in history whenever the American electorate is careless, distracted, suckered or dumb enough to give them so much as a Red Tinkle opportunity to do it.

Somewhere around Reagan's first horrific term as potus, Repubs simply gave up trying to produce anything but their usual historic crap results while also deciding it would be easier and more politically rewarding for them to devote all their time trolling Dems and trying to thwart consistently superior Dem results instead. You know, to "own the libs".

They have essentially been running election campaigns on that "platform" ever since. And, post-1988, that "platform" has pretty much been a bust for them in terms of winning the most votes in presidential races. Which is obviously a big reason they then had to add rigging, cheating, suppression of likely Dem votes, violent, cop-killing insurrections, attempts to overturn free and fair elections and overthrow American democracy to their "own the libs" election campaign strategy.

Hey, maybe a few Trump Digital Trading Card gifts will win us over and we'll stop rankling you with the truth about "Repubs bad, Dems good. ".

Hurry before they are sold out. Trump digital trading cards only $99 each. There should be no doubt now about this guy. Just take a look and when you stop laughing, remember that he was once the president and wants to be it again.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2770722]So to answer my question, you cannot make one post that is not Republicans bad, Democrats good. Got it.

So Obama and Biden's policies were the same? Got it.

LOL. Tell me how that changes anything. How many people have died due to the waste from nuclear fission?

Massive dependency huh? Yeesh.

Yeah, the fusion break throughs were all Dems, and all the taxpayer money spent on fusion technology came from Democrats too right?

I would ask you about Jimmy Carter's energy policy in comparison to Ronald Reagan's but I already know your answer, so I won't bother..[/QUOTE]Holy crap, Elvis. This is fantasy, even from you.

"So to answer my question, you cannot make one post that is not Republicans bad, Democrats good. Got it. " Hey, the Interstate Highway System was a pretty good thing, and it was started by a Republican. To their credit, I would say that the healthcare plan that Republicans came up with during the last administration was pretty damn decent [B]if they would have come up with one[/B]. Same thing with completion on the border wall, or passing an infrastructure plan or any of the other things that the previous administration promised.

"So Obama and Biden's policies were the same? Got it. " he didn't even say that.

"LOL. Tell me how that changes anything. How many people have died due to the waste from nuclear fission?" Hey, the fusion thing was a "breakthrough". It won't produce anything in the short term but in 10 years, who knows.

"Massive dependency huh? Yeesh. " Only a dumb Repub would say that 68% of energy coming from oil and gas is a trivial amount. [URL]https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/[/URL]#text=The%20 United%20 States%20 uses%20 a%20 mix%20 of%20 energy%20 source s&text=Primary%20 energy%20 sources%20 include%20 fossil, produced)%20 from%20 primary%20 energy%20 sources.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2771053]
Somewhere around Reagan's first horrific term as potus, Repubs simply gave up trying to produce anything but their usual historic crap results while also deciding it would be easier and more politically rewarding for them to devote all their time trolling Dems and trying to thwart consistently superior Dem results instead. You know, to "own the libs".

Hey, maybe a few Trump Digital Trading Card gifts will win us over and we'll stop rankling you with the truth about "Repubs bad, Dems good. ".[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Spidy;2770661]
By and large, Democrat administrations, in their more balanced approach to energy security, have been more forward thinking and progressive towards a cleaner energy future, by funding cleaner and renewable energy technologies.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2770563]When Bush 2 was in office in 2008, gasoline hit $4 per gallon. Repubs went on every talk show they could find to say that the president was not responsible for the price of gasoline.[/QUOTE]Those are the answers I got when I asked Spidy whose energy policies he liked better: Obama's or Biden's? You all went back to Democrat good, Republican bad when asked a question that had nothing to do with Republicans at all.

In fact, you can look at energy policy like someone asking what 2 + 2 is? Trump and Obama both answered 4, and Biden answered 5, and all you dummies can do is say Trump is the devil.

Of course, Tiny broke it down for you.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2770767]
Yes, the contrast between Obama's oil and gas policy and Biden's was extreme. Obama bragged about increasing production. Biden called for reducing net carbon emissions from electricity generation to "0" by 2035, which is absolutely nuts. It would rule out using natural gas for power generation. And he wanted to go to net zero for oil too by 2050. He campaigned on shutting down drilling on federal lands and federal offshore leases. But this of course has all gone by the wayside for the time being, as political considerations trump everything else.[/QUOTE]But you fools are too dumb to even see any difference between Democrats.

When it gets really funny is when you look at the past.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2770563]You Repubs bay at the moon over "Dems good, Repubs bad" as it that's all there is to it. It isn't. Repubs have done a few things right (like the Interstate Highway system) and lots of stuff wrong (China tariffs, "trickle-down economics", tax cuts for the rich). Dems have done lots of stuff right (Social Security, Civil Rights act, GI Bill, the Affordable Care Act) and some stuff wrong (the Affordable Care Act). But, in general, Dems want America to get better while Repubs want America to stay the same.[/QUOTE]Yeah, let's go with the race one here.

What party did Lincoln belong to when he announced the emancipation proclamation?

Was it a Republican or Democratic president in office when the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments of the Constitution were made into law?

Was it a Republican or Democrat president who was in office when the civil rights act of 1957 was signed into law?

With the civil rights act of 1964, which party's representatives in Congress passed it with a higher percentage?

As for the debate on the civil rights bill in 1964, it was the Democrats who led the filibuster against it.

Senator Strom Thurmond, who was still a Democrat at the time: "This so-called Civil Rights Proposals, which the President has sent to Capitol Hill for enactment into law, are unconstitutional, unnecessary, unwise and extend beyond the realm of reason. This is the worst civil-rights package ever presented to the Congress and is reminiscent of the Reconstruction proposals and actions of the radical Republican Congress. ".

When the bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30,1964, the "Southern Bloc" of 18 southern Democratic Senators and lone Republican John Tower of Texas, led by Richard Russell, launched a filibuster to prevent its passage. Russell proclaimed, "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would tend to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our Southern states. ".

Senator Robert Byrd ended his filibuster in opposition to the bill on the morning of June 10,1964, after 14 hours and 13 minutes.

Furthermore, if you are going to claim credit for past Democratic legislation like social security for the Dems, you have to acknowledge the racist power brokers of Congress, the two most powerful of which were Sam Rayburn and Richard Russell, both vehemently opposed to civil rights for blacks.

So yes, we have the Democratic douches now, the party of Robert Byrd, Richard Russell, Sam Rayburn and the original party of Strom Thurmond, having the nerve to call Republicans racist.

So you douches could not even answer the simplest of questions, whose energy policy do you prefer Obama's or Biden's? All you could do was insult Republicans which says what you are all about. You are not interested in what is best for the country. All you care about is if something good happens to make sure Dems get credit for it, and if something bad happens, Republicans get the blame.

And such behavior shows us you all do not give a damn about the country. All you care about is yourselves.

But yeah, we get it. Republicans bad, Dems good, so you all can quit posting now. We can predict what you are going to say, no need to waste disc space.

Don't look to China and Russia for examples of censorship. Being unherd is right here with us. Your not allowed to hear both sides, if the other side does not agree with us.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUBJjK_rKZY[/URL]

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2771312]Those are the answers I got when I asked Spidy whose energy policies he liked better: Obama's or Biden's? You all went back to Democrat good, Republican bad when asked a question that had nothing to do with Republicans at all.

In fact, you can look at energy policy like someone asking what 2 + 2 is? Trump and Obama both answered 4, and Biden answered 5, and all you dummies can do is say Trump is the devil.

Of course, Tiny broke it down for you.

But you fools are too dumb to even see any difference between Democrats.

When it gets really funny is when you look at the past.

Yeah, let's go with the race one here.

What party did Lincoln belong to when he announced the emancipation proclamation?

Was it a Republican or Democratic president in office when the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments of the Constitution were made into law?

Was it a Republican or Democrat president who was in office when the civil rights act of 1957 was signed into law?

With the civil rights act of 1964, which party's representatives in Congress passed it with a higher percentage?

As for the debate on the civil rights bill in 1964, it was the Democrats who led the filibuster against it.

Senator Strom Thurmond, who was still a Democrat at the time: "This so-called Civil Rights Proposals, which the President has sent to Capitol Hill for enactment into law, are unconstitutional, unnecessary, unwise and extend beyond the realm of reason. This is the worst civil-rights package ever presented to the Congress and is reminiscent of the Reconstruction proposals and actions of the radical Republican Congress. ".

When the bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30,1964, the "Southern Bloc" of 18 southern Democratic Senators and lone Republican John Tower of Texas, led by Richard Russell, launched a filibuster to prevent its passage. Russell proclaimed, "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would tend to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our Southern states. ".

Senator Robert Byrd ended his filibuster in opposition to the bill on the morning of June 10,1964, after 14 hours and 13 minutes.

Furthermore, if you are going to claim credit for past Democratic legislation like social security for the Dems, you have to acknowledge the racist power brokers of Congress, the two most powerful of which were Sam Rayburn and Richard Russell, both vehemently opposed to civil rights for blacks.

So yes, we have the Democratic douches now, the party of Robert Byrd, Richard Russell, Sam Rayburn and the original party of Strom Thurmond, having the nerve to call Republicans racist.

So you douches could not even answer the simplest of questions, whose energy policy do you prefer Obama's or Biden's? All you could do was insult Republicans which says what you are all about. You are not interested in what is best for the country. All you care about is if something good happens to make sure Dems get credit for it, and if something bad happens, Republicans get the blame.

And such behavior shows us you all do not give a damn about the country. All you care about is yourselves.

But yeah, we get it. Republicans bad, Dems good, so you all can quit posting now. We can predict what you are going to say, no need to waste disc space.[/QUOTE]The energy policy I prefer is the same as the economic policy I prefer and the national security policy I prefer; the best one possible under the circumstances and conditions that exist at the time.

Count on Dems to accomplish that.

Count on Repubs to accomplish the exact opposite of it.

Obama's policies vs Biden's? What a silly and utterly irrelevant question. Any Dem's policies will produce better results than any Repub's policies because each will be appropriate to the circumtances and conditions that exist at the time.

The Repub's policies will be all about making wealthy people even wealthier at the great expense of everyone else and / or "owning the libs", because those are a hell of a lot easier goals in life and work to accomplish, perfect for lazy Know Nothing, Do Nothing Repubs. And neither are likely to produce particularly positive results, not even by accident, and are quite likely to produce horrific results instead. And, sure enough, that is what happens.

Thank you, FDR.

I have seen the Interstate Highway System mentioned lately as if it were some grand and glorious conception and accomplishment of a Repub POTUS.

Not exactly:

[URL]https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/interstatemyths.cfm[/URL]

[QUOTE]The Interstate System was first described in a Bureau of Public Roads report to Congress, Toll Roads and Free Roads, in 1939. It was authorized for designation by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, with the initial designations in 1947 and completed in 1955 under the 40,000-mile limitation imposed by the 1944 Act. President Eisenhower didnt conceive the Interstate System, but his support led to enactment of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which established the program for funding and building it.[/QUOTE]It was a great Dem economic and job creating idea that golfer Ike didn't object to very strongly or try to thwart as long as it was branded as a military / defense project and not the continuation of a Dem FDR New Deal project, which it was.

And, after all, with his typically atrocious Repub economic and job creating record materializing by then, Ike and his Party needed to retreat to a Dem New Deal fix for it despite their years' long efforts to demonize anything and everything related to the great FDR's great Dem New Deal policies.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2771232]
"So to answer my question, you cannot make one post that is not Republicans bad, Democrats good. Got it. " Hey, the Interstate Highway System was a pretty good thing, and it was started by a Republican. To their credit, I would say that the healthcare plan that Republicans came up with during the last administration was pretty damn decent [B]if they would have come up with one[/B]. Same thing with completion on the border wall, or passing an infrastructure plan or any of the other things that the previous administration promised.[/QUOTE]Sigh, Eisenhower was president when the highway bill was passed, but it was not passed when Republicans had a majority. It was only when Dems won part of Congress, the bill was passed into law.

The part with Eisenhower you douches do not get is that the law that put the top tax rate at 91% was put in by Eisenhower and a totally Republican controlled Congress which blows your stupid the Republicans-do-not-tax-the rich line out of the water.

A better question is: who cares? The only reason this is even an issue is you douches claim all good laws were Democrat laws and all bad ones were Republican. Oh I am sorry. That was Tooms. With you, it was 80-20 Dems to Republicans, so you are only 80% douche PVM. Congratulations.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2771232]"So Obama and Biden's policies were the same? Got it. " he didn't even say that.[/QUOTE]Yeah, he did. He said Democratic energy policies are all the same.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2771232]"LOL. Tell me how that changes anything. How many people have died due to the waste from nuclear fission?" Hey, the fusion thing was a "breakthrough". It won't produce anything in the short term but in 10 years, who knows.[/QUOTE]Yes, and it was an American breakthrough not a Democratic one and no, nothing will come of this in 10 years. That is just dumb Democratic bragging at work. [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjybBP2ohbo[/URL].

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2771232]Only a dumb Repub would say that 68% of energy coming from oil and gas is a trivial amount.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Spidy;2770661]
BTW, I'm not saying oil & gas is going away (we still need it), just our massive dependency on it and the ability of foreign oil & gas dictators/producers to hold the US hostage.
[/QUOTE]And only two clueless Democratic douches would think we are still dependent on foreign oil and gas producers. Well, at least, we were not dependent on them when Trump was president.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2771312]Those are the answers I got when I asked Spidy whose energy policies he liked better: Obama's or Biden's? You all went back to Democrat good, Republican bad when asked a question that had nothing to do with Republicans at all....whose energy policy do you prefer Obama's or Biden's? [/QUOTE]Hey Elvis, they can't help themselves. Don't blame them, blame the politicians and the main stream media. The posters here are the victims, not the perpetrators. They've hitched themselves to the big blue wagon, and even if the Progressives and Joe Biden steer it through the gates of hell, they're going to hang on for the ride.

Anyway, if you want a laugh, contrast the House Oversight Committee's new reports on Big Oil's "Greenwashing Campaign and Failure to Reduce Emissions" to Amos Hochstein's (President Biden's chief energy advisor's) recent condemnations of Big Oil for not Increasing Emissions. The oil companies are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The Democrats want to put them out of business at the same time that they want them to produce more oil and gas.

[URL]https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/oversight-committee-releases-new-documents-showing-big-oil-s-greenwashing[/URL]

[URL]https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-energy-envoy-hochstein-calls-investor-hostility-shale-drilling-un-american-ft-2022-12-11/[/URL]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2771362]Thank you, FDR.

I have seen the Interstate Highway System mentioned lately as if it were some grand and glorious conception and accomplishment of a Repub POTUS.

Not exactly:

[URL]https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/interstatemyths.cfm[/URL]

It was a great Dem economic and job creating idea that golfer Ike didn't object to very strongly or try to thwart as long as it was branded as a military / defense project and not the continuation of a Dem FDR New Deal project, which it was.

And, after all, with his typically atrocious Repub economic and job creating record materializing by then, Ike and his Party needed to retreat to a Dem New Deal fix for it despite their years' long efforts to demonize anything and everything related to the great FDR's great Dem New Deal policies.[/QUOTE]Eisenhower got the idea from the Germans and the autobahn after ww2 ended.

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2771537]Eisenhower got the idea from the Germans and the autobahn after ww2 ended.[/QUOTE]Eisenhower saw it in Germany. But he didn't get the idea for it at any time or anywhere for the USA.

FDR did.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2771636]Eisenhower saw it in Germany. But he didn't get the idea for it at any time or anywhere for the USA.

FDR did.[/QUOTE]I guess we just read different books and articles. But Ike did get them started in 1956. Hard to believe a USA before the Highway System. I do remember the first ones in my area being built. Late 50's and 60's.

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-world-suddenly-realizes-chinas-covid-stats-are-totally-made-up/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first[/URL]

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2771652]I guess we just read different books and articles. But Ike did get them started in 1956. Hard to believe a USA before the Highway System. I do remember the first ones in my area being built. Late 50's and 60's.[/QUOTE]Unless Ike was in Germany in 1938 or so, saw their system and miraculously became POTUS 15 years earlier than all the non fiction books say he did and got the idea of doing it and legislating for it in America, which didn't happen, then it was FDR and not Ike.

I just posted a link and quoted the timeline for the initial plans and legislation for it going back to 1939. Is that when Ike came up with the idea, took a meeting and convinced FDR he ought to include it in his New Deal plans? Really?

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2771312]Those are the answers I got when I asked Spidy whose energy policies he liked better: Obama's or Biden's? You all went back to Democrat good, Republican bad when asked a question that had nothing to do with Republicans at all.

In fact, you can look at energy policy like someone asking what 2 + 2 is? Trump and Obama both answered 4, and Biden answered 5, and all you dummies can do is say Trump is the devil.

Of course, Tiny broke it down for you.

But you fools are too dumb to even see any difference between Democrats.

When it gets really funny is when you look at the past.

Yeah, let's go with the race one here.

What party did Lincoln belong to when he announced the emancipation proclamation?

Was it a Republican or Democratic president in office when the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments of the Constitution were made into law?

Was it a Republican or Democrat president who was in office when the civil rights act of 1957 was signed into law?

With the civil rights act of 1964, which party's representatives in Congress passed it with a higher percentage?

As for the debate on the civil rights bill in 1964, it was the Democrats who led the filibuster against it.

Senator Strom Thurmond, who was still a Democrat at the time: "This so-called Civil Rights Proposals, which the President has sent to Capitol Hill for enactment into law, are unconstitutional, unnecessary, unwise and extend beyond the realm of reason. This is the worst civil-rights package ever presented to the Congress and is reminiscent of the Reconstruction proposals and actions of the radical Republican Congress. "..[/QUOTE]By the by, which political party did all of those [B]racist[/B] "Southern Democrats" flock to? The Republicans. And which political party do those racists still belong to? The Republicans. Kind of blows up your narrative, doesn't it.

Several weeks ago, I was having a discussion with an acquaintance about his contention that Donnie the Dumbass wasn't racist. I said he was and brought up things like:

The 1972 Federal Lawsuit against trump that said, in part, "Two former Trump employees, a husband and wife who rented properties, were quoted in court documents as saying they were told that the company wanted to rent only to 'Jews and Executives' and 'discouraged rental to blacks.

In the 1980's, "Kip Brown, a former employee at Trump's Castle, accused another one of Trump's businesses of discrimination. "When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor," Brown said. "It was the eighties, I was a teenager, but I remember it: They put us all in the back. ".

The 1991 book about Donnie the Dumbass that said: "former Trump employee John O'Donnell alleged that Trump had described laziness as "a trait in blacks" and once told him, "I've got black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day."

In 1992 "The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino had to pay a $200,000 fine because it transferred Black and women dealers off tables to accommodate a big-time gambler's prejudices. "

The 1993 Congressional hearing on Native American casino operators where Donnie the Dumbass said: "Go up to Connecticut and you look at the Mashantucket Pequots. They don't look like Indians to me".

The 2000 attack on the Mohawk casino operation in which Donnie the Dumbass said: "Ask Governor George Pataki why? Why would Governor George Pataki give millions of dollars to a group accused of drug smuggling, money laundering, trafficking in illegal immigrants and violence?

You probably don't see where I'm going with this but because you brought up [B]ancient history[/B] in your response and claim that just because it is old doesn't make it untrue, neither can you claim that Donnie the Dumbass isn't racist because of stuff he did (or didn't do) prior to 2015.

But then, When Donnie the Dumbass was campaigning and was our so-called president* he said:

Trump launched his campaign in 2015 by calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" who are "bringing crime" and "bringing drugs" to the US. His campaign was largely built on building a wall to keep these immigrants out of the US.

As a candidate in 2015, Trump called for a ban on all Muslims coming into the US. His administration eventually implemented a significantly watered-down version of the policy.

When asked at a 2016 Republican debate whether all 1. 6 billion Muslims hate the US, Trump said, "I mean a lot of them. I mean a lot of them."

He argued in 2016 that Judge Gonzalo Curiel — who was overseeing the Trump University lawsuit — should recuse himself from the case because of his Mexican heritage and membership in a Latino lawyers association. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who endorsed Trump, later called such comments "the textbook definition of a racist comment. "

Trump has been repeatedly slow to condemn white supremacists who endorse him, and he regularly retweeted messages from white supremacists and neo-Nazis during his presidential campaign.

He tweeted and later deleted an image that showed Hillary Clinton in front of a pile of money and by a Jewish Star of David that said, "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" The tweet had some very obvious anti-Semitic imagery, but Trump insisted that the star was a sheriff's badge, and said his campaign shouldn't have deleted it.

Trump has repeatedly referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as "Pocahontas," using her controversial — and later walked-back — claims to Native American heritage as a punchline.

At the 2016 Republican convention, Trump officially seized the mantle of the "law and order" candidate — an obvious dog whistle playing to white fears of Black crime, even though crime in the US is historically low. His speeches, comments, and executive actions after he took office have continued this line of messaging.

In a pitch to Black voters in 2016, Trump said, "You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?

Trump stereotyped a Black reporter at a press conference in February 2017. When April Ryan asked him if he plans to meet and work with the Congressional Black Caucus, he repeatedly asked her to set up the meeting — even as she insisted that she's "just a reporter."

In the week after white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, Trump repeatedly said that "many sides" and "both sides" were to blame for the violence and chaos that ensued — suggesting that the white supremacist protesters were morally equivalent to counterprotesters who stood against racism. He also said that there were "some very fine people" among the white supremacists. All of this seemed like a dog whistle to white supremacists — and many of them took it as one, with white nationalist Richard Spencer praising Trump for "defending the truth."

Throughout 2017, Trump repeatedly attacked NFL players who, by kneeling or otherwise silently protesting during the national anthem, demonstrated against systemic racism in America.

Trump reportedly said in 2017 that people who came to the US from Haiti "all have AIDS," and he lamented that people who came to the US from Nigeria would never "go back to their huts" once they saw America. The White House denied that Trump ever made these comments.

Speaking about immigration in a bipartisan meeting in January 2018, Trump reportedly asked, in reference to Haiti and African countries, "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" he then reportedly suggested that the US should take more people from countries like Norway. The implication: Immigrants from predominantly white countries are good, while immigrants from predominantly Black countries are bad.

Trump denied making the "shithole" comments, although some senators present at the meeting said they happened. The White House, meanwhile, suggested that the comments, like Trump's remarks about the NFL protests, will play well to his base. The only connection between Trump's remarks about the NFL protests and his "shithole" comments is race.

Trump mocked Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign, again calling her "Pocahontas" in a 2019 tweet before adding, "See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!" The capitalized "TRAIL" is seemingly a reference to the Trail of Tears — a horrific act of ethnic cleansing in the 19th century in which Native Americans were forcibly relocated, causing thousands of deaths.

Trump tweeted later that year that several Black and brown members of Congress — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) — are "from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe" and that they should "go back" to those countries. It's a common racist trope to say that Black and brown people, particularly immigrants, should go back to their countries of origin. Three of the four members of Congress whom Trump targeted were born in the US.

Trump has called the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus the "Chinese virus" and "kung flu. " The World Health Organization advises against linking a virus to any particular region, since it can lead to stigma. Trump's adviser, Kellyanne Conway, previously described the term "kung flu" as "highly offensive. " Meanwhile, Asian Americans have reported hateful incidents targeting them due to the spread of the coronavirus.

Trump suggested that Kamala Harris, who's Black and South Asian, "doesn't meet the requirements" to be former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's running mate — yet another example of birtherism.

So yes, Donnie the Dumbass is racist (and misogynistic and xenophobic) and bringing up ancient history about Democrats is as useless as your claim that Democrats are racist because of their past or that Bill Clinton was misogynistic because he got a blowjob while in office.

[URL]https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history[/URL]

[QUOTE=Elvis;2770722] So to answer my question, you cannot make one post that is not Republicans bad, Democrats good. Got it. ...

Hell, you can stop posting because we all know what you are going to say anyway. [/QUOTE] Too funny...kkkk! Says the guy who keeps, reading, responding and asking questions to my posts!

[QUOTE=Elvis;2770722] Yeah, the fusion break throughs were all Dems, and all the taxpayer money spent on fusion technology came from Democrats too right? [/QUOTE] Is that what you think? I can see why you'd think that, especially when you hear and read about the tax grifting/evading cheats like Repub leader Donnie J. Dummkopf, on his taxes.

[QUOTE=Elvis;2770722] I would ask you about Jimmy Carter's energy policy in comparison to Ronald Reagan's but I already know your answer, so I won't bother. [/QUOTE] By all means, ask away...remember there are no stupid questions.

[QUOTE=Elvis;2770722] Spidy, can you post anything outside of Dems good, Republicans bad? [/QUOTE]

The Dems "good", Repubs "bad" thing, you and Tiny 12, have conjured up in your minds, I'm pretty sure this has been explained to y'all several times before. Check back a few days ago to EihTooms' post or go checkout the beginning of October, 2022, should you care for a refresh.

BTW, can [b]YOU[/b] post anything else outside of [i]"Dem douches this", "Dem douches that"[/i] or [i]"you douches, blah, blah, blah"?[/i] Ahhh....who the hell I'm kidding...just forget I asked! I forgot, you are the king of the [b]"D-bag"[/b] word usage...carry on!

[QUOTE=Elvis;2770722]LOL. Tell me how that changes anything. How many people have died due to the waste from nuclear fission? [/QUOTE]Arhhh...what now? I NEVER mentioned [b]nuclear fission.[/b] So what exactly are you saying?

Are you saying nuclear fusion is the same as nuclear fission and people are going to die from nuclear fusion waste?

Since you brought it up, please do tell us, how many people have died from nuclear fission? While you're at it, tell us how many people have died from fossil fuels/oil and gas production/pollutants?

[QUOTE=Elvis;2770722] Massive dependency huh? Yeesh. [/QUOTE]OPEC ring a bell? Who sets world oil supply/production output quotas/levels again? Last I checked the US wasn't on this list.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2771773]Unless Ike was in Germany in 1938 or so, saw their system and miraculously became POTUS 15 years earlier than all the non fiction books say he did and got the idea of doing it and legislating for it in America, which didn't happen, then it was FDR and not Ike.

I just posted a link and quoted the timeline for the initial plans and legislation for it going back to 1939. Is that when Ike came up with the idea, took a meeting and convinced FDR he ought to include it in his New Deal plans? Really?[/QUOTE]In 1944, The Federal-Aid Highway Act was approved. This Act provided $225 million a year for new highways and another $150 million a year for secondary / feeder roads. This money was never actually put into road construction, it was placed into accounts of the US Treasury for Interstate Highways. The money was not spent until passage of The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.

True but you didn't keep reading.

Your response seems to be of a guy with little man's complex.

Major Funding Work Begins:

In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower, the LT. Col. Observer on the 1919 First Transcontinental Motor Convoy was President of the United States of America and by this time his vision was a network of new highways crossing America north to south and east to west. He would later persuade Congress to enact the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act creating what we now call the Interstate Highway System. The First Transcontinental Motor Convoy and his years in Germany and seeing the Autobahns during World War II gave him the opportunity to see what needed to be done in the US.

[QUOTE=Elvis;2770636] When you have inflation, the correct move is to cut back on spending not spend like a drunken sailor as Biden has been doing. Biden is so stupid he said government spending does not cause inflation while everyone he put on the federal reserve is doing all they can to cut spending / demand to tame inflation.[/QUOTE]
Biden is right once again!

When Obama took office (basically right after he won the election, as early bipartisan bailout measures were implemented), the US spent over trillions, in efforts to right the ship, USS Economy.

They literally spent like drunken sailors (and had to get drunk) in order to clean up and bail out, the banksters, the corporate welfare cronies and the elite rich, left behind by the Bush administration. Inflation (and interest rates for that matter) was at [b]historic lows[/b], while they spent like drunken sailors, during the next several years. In fact inflation (and interest rates) turned negative and the banksters were charging cash deposits, a "storage fee" (the nerve of the bastards).

[b]Historical Inflation Rates: 1914-2022 [/b]
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/

[QUOTE=Elvis;2770636] If you want a Biden compliment, take that. At least Biden put economic advisers in place smarter than his stupid ass. [/QUOTE]
Yeah, I know right, what a smart thing to do, much like every other "stupid ass" president before him, except of course for Donnie J. Dummkopf.

Oh no, Donnie J. Dummkopf, was so smart, he brought in his daughter and son-in-law, as advisors. And our "superhero", Donnie J. Dummkopf, was so smart, he didn't need advisors at all. And naturally, when he did have advisors, it was always better when they were dumber than him. That way his ego wouldn't suffer (although the country most certainly did) and he then could always [b]pretend to be[/b] the "smartest person in the room".

Such hubris!!!

Elvis, anyways, in the Christmas spirit, just a yuletide reminder to get your "superhero", [b]NFT Agent Orange trading cards[/b], at [URL]www.collectTrumpCards.com[/URL], just $99, now, and just in time for Christmas...ho, ho, ho!

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2771848]In 1944, The Federal-Aid Highway Act was approved. This Act provided $225 million a year for new highways and another $150 million a year for secondary / feeder roads. This money was never actually put into road construction, it was placed into accounts of the US Treasury for Interstate Highways. The money was not spent until passage of The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.

True but you didn't keep reading.

Your response seems to be of a guy with little man's complex.

Major Funding Work Begins:

In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower, the LT. Col. Observer on the 1919 First Transcontinental Motor Convoy was President of the United States of America and by this time his vision was a network of new highways crossing America north to south and east to west. He would later persuade Congress to enact the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act creating what we now call the Interstate Highway System. The First Transcontinental Motor Convoy and his years in Germany and seeing the Autobahns during World War II gave him the opportunity to see what needed to be done in the US.[/QUOTE]Your response seems to be of a guy with a lack of simple math skills. I'll post the link, timeline and the very first debunked myth about it again, which you seem to have swallowed hook, line and sinker all along:

[B]Interstate Highway System - The Myths.
Myth #1:
President Eisenhower conceived the Interstate System.[/B]

[URL]https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/interstatemyths.cfm[/URL]

[QUOTE]The Interstate System was first described in a Bureau of Public Roads report to Congress, Toll Roads and Free Roads, in [b]1939.[/b] It was authorized for designation by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of [b]1944[/b], with the initial designations in [b]1947[/b] and completed in 1955 under the 40,000-mile limitation imposed by the [b]1944 Act. [/b] [b]President Eisenhower didnt conceive the Interstate System,[/b] but his support led to enactment of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which established the program for funding and building it.[/QUOTE]This time around I highlighted in [B]Bold[/B] the dates of its conception and initial legislation, all of which pre-date Eisenhower's election, and the statement flat out debunking that often repeated myth about it being Eisenhower's idea, conception, lifelong dream, whim, whatever.

I can't refute the notion that in 1944 Eisenhower "had a vision" about it or that in 1953 and 1956 he said something like, "Sure, go ahead with the plan, I won't try to stop it. What time is our tee off tomorrow again"?

But by then he was several years late on the actual conception, plans, proposals and initial legislation for it. You know, the hard part.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2771392]Sigh, Eisenhower was president when the highway bill was passed, but it was not passed when Republicans had a majority. It was only when Dems won part of Congress, the bill was passed into law.

[b]The part with Eisenhower you douches do not get is that the law that put the top tax rate at 91% was put in by Eisenhower and a totally Republican controlled Congress which blows your stupid the Republicans-do-not-tax-the rich line out of the water.[/b]

A better question is: who cares? The only reason this is even an issue is you douches claim all good laws were Democrat laws and all bad ones were Republican. Oh I am sorry. That was Tooms. With you, it was 80-20 Dems to Republicans, so you are only 80% douche PVM. Congratulations.

Yeah, he did. He said Democratic energy policies are all the same.

Yes, and it was an American breakthrough not a Democratic one and no, nothing will come of this in 10 years. That is just dumb Democratic bragging at work. [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjybBP2ohbo[/URL].



And only two clueless Democratic douches would think we are still dependent on foreign oil and gas producers. Well, at least, we were not dependent on them when Trump was president.[/QUOTE]The top marginal tax rate was higher in 1944,1945, 1951,1952 and 1953 than the 91% Eisenhower reduced it to left it throughout his presidency while he was busy promoting and committing us by word, deed and treaty to an increasing military involvement in Vietnam and playing golf.

[URL]https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates[/URL]

It wasn't Eisenhower's top marginal tax rate that produced his horrific jobs creating record and the seeming never ending series of Recessions all through his Happy Days. It was his inattention to serious poverty conditions in rural America and among growing minority demographics.

JFK and LBJ didn't ignore it. Their tax codes gave huge tax breaks, deductions and exemptions to the middle and lower income margins that was the stuff of nightmares for Repub Supply-Siders.

That's why Eisenhower's economic and jobs creation record was crap and JFK / LBJ's was historically positive.

Repubs don't just apply one method to produce their crap results. They are always trying new and unprecedented ones as well.

[QUOTE=Tiny 12;2771428]Hey Elvis, they can't help themselves. Don't blame them, blame the politicians and the main stream media. The posters here are the victims, not the perpetrators. They've hitched themselves to the big blue wagon, and even if the Progressives and Joe Biden steer it through the gates of hell, they're going to hang on for the ride. ... [/QUOTE]

Yeah, thanks but no thanks! I'm of free mind and body, enough to think and/or apologize for myself when appropriately necessary.

Tiny 12, you sound like the Fox News and QAnon/Repub treasonous insurrection apologists for the crimes of the Jan 6th rioters (or are they now victims? Or is it innocent bystanders, just out for a stroll?). You should perhaps, stick to apologizing for your QAnon/Repub/MAGA cult being brainwashed and the faithless grifted donor suckers by Donnie J. Dummkopf and the [b]black-hole[/b] that is the [b]right-wing media.[/b]

I think, your apologies would be better served addressing the failures and lunacy of your QAnon/Repub/MAGA brethren. Perhaps they'll take solace in your (albeit no doubt) "well meaning" apologies?

BTW, Christmas is coming, don't forget your, [b]NFT Donnie J. Dummkopf trading cards[/b], at [URL]www.collectTrumpCards.com[/URL], according to Donnie J. Dummkopf, they make great Christmas gifts. Hey, perhaps you and Elvis could trade NFT DJD cards...kkkk!

No thanks and [u]No apologies[/u] necessary, your welcome, merry Christmas!!!

Dear Elvis,

I am currently covered up with work, so have not had an opportunity to comment on your excellent posts. However I shall return. And in the meantime it's been insightful to observe from afar how our Democrat friends treat a token Republican or bothsider or neithersider or whatever it is that they think we are. In their minds they're the sharks, and you're the baby seal. But the reality is that you're the Independent Right of Center Blue Whale, and they are mere minnows, the proverbial gnats on an elephants ass. Keep up the good work.

Your friend,

Tiny.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2771428]Hey Elvis, they can't help themselves. Don't blame them, blame the politicians and the main stream media. The posters here are the victims, not the perpetrators. They've hitched themselves to the big blue wagon, and even if the Progressives and Joe Biden steer it through the gates of hell, they're going to hang on for the ride.[/QUOTE]Yeah, but it is kind of fun to predict the moronic responses. You can goad PVM into the racist crap pretty easily. Of course, he ignores racism against whites and in fact goes along with it which means he is racist. [URL]https://reason.com/2021/03/29/basic-income-programs-in-marin-county-and-oakland-exclude-white-people-is-that-legal/[/URL].

Isn't the whole point of racism not looking at people as a group and to get to know them as individuals when determining their worth? Again, PVM, Tooms, and Spidy are the most prejudiced people there are against people who vote Republican.

Then you have these idiots and their claims Republicans are for tax cuts for the rich. Here is what a Democratic senator made sure was put into law [URL]https://www.businessinsider.com/tax-provision-cut-rich-investors-kyrsten-sinema-2022-8:[/URL].

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona on Thursday agreed to back the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, meaning the bill had gained support from all 50 Democrats in the US Senate.

Her cooperation came with the removal of a carried-interest tax provision, a small portion of the bill that targeted a tax break for the wealthy.

It represents a momentary win for some of the richest Americans. The provision had targeted a loophole that can be used to reduce taxes for hedge fund managers and other people who manage money for a living. When fund managers make money for their clients through their investments, they receive a cut of those profits. They're allowed to classify that payment as capital gains, which are subject to lower tax rates than those for salary paychecks and bonuses. With the removal of the provision, fund managers have avoided restrictions that would've made it harder for them to keep to keep paying the same low tax rates on their income.

You can predict the responses: Republicans are even worse, they are more racist ETC but once again, neither of these stories is even about Republicans.

And you know the stuff about Dems and the rich? Here are where some of the richest companies in the world give their money party wise: [URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-ranked-by-employee-donations.html[/URL].

The funny part is when you watch the videos of these tech employees at "work". This is a good one: [URL]https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1585395267552960512[/URL].

So Musk fires 85% of the people at Twitter, and the viewership goes up, and I see nothing change on the site. And of course, so much of that Covid stimulus money found its way into tech.

And if you follow the Twitter files released by the most independent journalists there are, you will see the FBI actively censoring Republican accounts. So when Democrats talk about freedom of speech, that means they should be able to speak freely but it is okay if everyone else is censored. It is just like Democrats being unable to be racists when they are putting forth racist policies. This is 1984 doublespeak in action.

The funny part though is when it comes to math. Numbers do not care about politics and the funny part is the amount of money in the system is being vacuumed out. The idea you can just print money and not have inflation has been shown to be trashed. It was amazing that this was even a thing.

Tooms has already blamed Republicans of course. Trump and Biden's (but it is really Trump's per Tooms) Powell are responsible for his down year, but he is not seen anything yet. So much of that money in crypto, real estate, and the stock market has gone poof. And the rest of the world has been hit not just by horrible inflation but the decreased purchasing power of the dollar. How do you make record profits when so much money has been taken out of the system?

I was watching these guys talking inflation and predicted that inflation could be negative at the end of the year, and I laughed and thought "Yeah, it could be. " Of course, that would be after a recession that shattered demand.

The funny thing this year has been the market reacting like Dems to the Fed. It is like the Fed is saying "No, we are not giving you anymore handouts. " Then there is a smidgen of data suggesting the Fed will quit raising rates (I. E. Handing the market cheap money) and the market rallies and says, "We know you like us Jay Powell and will give us more money" and he has a press conference and says "No we are not" and then the market ignores him and says, "Well, Powell really did not mean it. ".

It is like thanking Senator Sinema for being a good Democrat (I know she is an independent now as if that matters) and taxing the rich. Sinema and Powell are really on our side, dontchaknow.

Lately then I have just been buying and selling SQQQ with these moves. I buy it in the low to mid 40's and sell half in the high 50's and low 60's. The Nasdaq is down 30% and is still too expensive. Taking the other side of the bets of the crazy Democratic douches has been very profitable. I do not recall ever losing when I bet against insane.

So it is easy to be a Democratic douche when the music is playing and wine is flowing, but when it stops, that is when there will be change, and it has paid well to be a Democratic douche here lately.

For example, that crazy censorship witch at Twitter was getting $17 million a year, but she is out of work now.

Superb presentation on economic decline of USA, with parallels to 20th century Germany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS-eCnCneyA

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2772026]Yeah, but it is kind of fun to predict the moronic responses. You can goad PVM into the racist crap pretty easily. Of course, he ignores racism against whites and in fact goes along with it which means he is racist. [URL]https://reason.com/2021/03/29/basic-income-programs-in-marin-county-and-oakland-exclude-white-people-is-that-legal/[/URL].

Isn't the whole point of racism not looking at people as a group and to get to know them as individuals when determining their worth? Again, PVM, Tooms, and Spidy are the most prejudiced people there are against people who vote Republican.

Then you have these idiots and their claims Republicans are for tax cuts for the rich. Here is what a Democratic senator made sure was put into law [URL]https://www.businessinsider.com/tax-provision-cut-rich-investors-kyrsten-sinema-2022-8:[/URL].

[b]Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona on Thursday agreed to back the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, meaning the bill had gained support from all 50 Democrats in the US Senate.[/b]

Her cooperation came with the removal of a carried-interest tax provision, a small portion of the bill that targeted a tax break for the wealthy.

It represents a momentary win for some of the richest Americans. The provision had targeted a loophole that can be used to reduce taxes for hedge fund managers and other people who manage money for a living. When fund managers make money for their clients through their investments, they receive a cut of those profits. They're allowed to classify that payment as capital gains, which are subject to lower tax rates than those for salary paychecks and bonuses. With the removal of the provision, fund managers have avoided restrictions that would've made it harder for them to keep to keep paying the same low tax rates on their income.

[b]You can predict the responses: Republicans are even worse, they are more racist ETC but once again, neither of these stories is even about Republicans.[/b]

And you know the stuff about Dems and the rich? Here are where some of the richest companies in the world give their money party wise: [URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-ranked-by-employee-donations.html[/URL].

The funny part is when you watch the videos of these tech employees at "work". This is a good one: [URL]https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1585395267552960512[/URL].

So Musk fires 85% of the people at Twitter, and the viewership goes up, and I see nothing change on the site. And of course, so much of that Covid stimulus money found its way into tech.

And if you follow the Twitter files released by the most independent journalists there are, you will see the FBI actively censoring Republican accounts. So when Democrats talk about freedom of speech, that means they should be able to speak freely but it is okay if everyone else is censored. It is just like Democrats being unable to be racists when they are putting forth racist policies. This is 1984 doublespeak in action.

The funny part though is when it comes to math. Numbers do not care about politics and the funny part is the amount of money in the system is being vacuumed out. The idea you can just print money and not have inflation has been shown to be trashed. It was amazing that this was even a thing.

Tooms has already blamed Republicans of course. Trump and Biden's (but it is really Trump's per Tooms) Powell are responsible for his down year, but he is not seen anything yet. So much of that money in crypto, real estate, and the stock market has gone poof. And the rest of the world has been hit not just by horrible inflation but the decreased purchasing power of the dollar. How do you make record profits when so much money has been taken out of the system?

I was watching these guys talking inflation and predicted that inflation could be negative at the end of the year, and I laughed and thought "Yeah, it could be. " Of course, that would be after a recession that shattered demand.

The funny thing this year has been the market reacting like Dems to the Fed. It is like the Fed is saying "No, we are not giving you anymore handouts. " Then there is a smidgen of data suggesting the Fed will quit raising rates (I. E. Handing the market cheap money) and the market rallies and says, "We know you like us Jay Powell and will give us more money" and he has a press conference and says "No we are not" and then the market ignores him and says, "Well, Powell really did not mean it. ".

It is like thanking Senator Sinema for being a good Democrat (I know she is an independent now as if that matters) and taxing the rich. Sinema and Powell are really on our side, dontchaknow.

Lately then I have just been buying and selling SQQQ with these moves. I buy it in the low to mid 40's and sell half in the high 50's and low 60's. The Nasdaq is down 30% and is still too expensive. Taking the other side of the bets of the crazy Democratic douches has been very profitable. I do not recall ever losing when I bet against insane.

So it is easy to be a Democratic douche when the music is playing and wine is flowing, but when it stops, that is when there will be change, and it has paid well to be a Democratic douche here lately.

For example, that crazy censorship witch at Twitter was getting $17 million a year, but she is out of work now.[/QUOTE]Krysten Sinema is not a Democrat. As well as a couple of other Senators who voted for the final bill.

And how does the fact that ALL of the other 50 Senators did absolutely nothing for their taxpayer-funded paycheck and did not support the tax on the wealthy either give them a pass on what was in the bill? Since when?

Oh, by the way, Democratic voters drive and produce the vast majority of the USA economy, accounting for 70% of the country's entire GDP by 2020.

And that is up from 64% when Hillary won the most votes in 2016:

[B]Democratic counties represent 70% of U.S. GDP, 2020 election shows[/B]

[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/10/election-2020-democrats-republicans-economy.html[/URL]

[QUOTE][b]KEY POINTS[/b]
The 2020 elections, chaotic and marked by races too close to call, have nonetheless reaffirmed that, at least in Washington, the two parties now speak for markedly different segments of the U.S. economy.

President Donald Trump carried 2,497 counties across the country that together generate 29% of the American economy, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution.

President-elect Joe Biden won 477 counties that together generate 70% of U.S. GDP.

These differences, if they persist or worsen, could result in partisan gridlock for years to come, a researcher wrote.[/QUOTE][URL]https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/11/09/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/[/URL]

[URL]https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/latest-updates-biden-trump-election-2020/card/32vHNFTTc2xxNr7NITHY[/URL]

So whatever Repubs, Pro Repub Bothsiders, Pro Repub Neithersiders or whatever think they know about a complex national economy like that of the USA is practically irrelevant.

[QUOTE=Elvis;2772026] "Isn't the whole point of racism not looking at people as a group and to get to know them as individuals when determining their worth? Again, PVM, Tooms, and Spidy are the most prejudiced people there are against people who vote Republican. ... "[/QUOTE]

Elvis, If your going to make up false claims and project any such baises, bigotry, prejudices, hate speech, name calling, slurs and slander on other BMs, it would behoove you to also provide
examples/proof of said scurrilous infractions, from the accused BMs.

But no doubt and true to form, much like your QAnon\Repub election denying brethren, who continually make up false claims about election fraud by the Dems, without proof and substantiated evidential facts, you [b]only serve to incriminate yourself[/b] of the very thing you are accusing other of being.

[u]Just for the Record:[/u]
For the record, when you say [i]"...there are against people who vote Republican."[/i], it couldn't be further from the truth. Unlike the Repubs, who insidiously and maniacally plot to subvert, suppress and deny Americans the right to vote, I love Americans who get out and vote, period.

What now? You lost me on so many levels with, [i]"Again, PVM, Tooms, and Spidy are the most prejudiced people..."[/i]. Really? Compared to whom? How would you know? Is Tiny 12, really supposed to believe that?

Just because we (Dems) provide opposing arguments, counterpoints and disagree with (what I often consider, IMHO) political Repub rhetoric or right-wing dogma, you call us [i]"the most prejudiced
people"[/i] and [b]"there are against people who vote Republican."[/b]Really!? Is that really what you think?

[u]Just to be clear:[/u]
[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], I don't care (or give a flying f#cK,), if you vote for the Dems, [b]the Repubs[/b], or for the Independents. [u]I care about[/u] the ease of access, available, seamless and uncomplicated voting; and of course, [b]the right for ALL eligible Americans to VOTE![/b] PERIOD!!!

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], I'm HERE to argue the governing politics and policies of Dems and Repub political parties, or politics from the World at large, as it my pertain to the US. And of course those politicians, placed in office to "dutifully", "responsibly" and with earnest "accountability", deemed to carry out and serve the will of their respective constituencies.

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], I'm mostly "against" the boneheaded, knucklehead, wrongheaded, misguided, bias, unfair, unjust, discriminatory and partisan policies and laws that go against rights, wishes of the majority of Americans, be it Dems or Repubs. It just so happens, Repubs fall into this category more often than not.

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], while I suspect YOU, Elvis, may take the discussion here personally, I DO NOT! ...IT'S NOT PERSONAL for me! (Truth be told, it actually been fun, time permitted!)

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], you continue to be you. I wouldn't have it any other way. Continue to call me names, if that makes you sleep better at nights, as I'm a big-boy and can take it (figuratively speaking). [u]But don't project your biases, bigotry or prejudices on me[/u], without providing examples of me committing said infractions.

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], (although you and Tiny 12 may think otherwise), it's not a "Dems good" and "Repubs bad" thing either. I just happen to think and believe, by and large, Dems do a way better job in office, servicing the needs of most Americans, than when Repubs are in office. Heck, if Repubs made better polices and stood for more just & equal rights and laws for Americans, I'd vote Red.

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], (for [b]Tiny 12[/b] and other BMs reading this), Elvis, I know you posted/responded to Tiny 12, but I just wanted to MAKE IT CLEAR, I am not attacking Tiny 12. Tiny 12 has always been respectful in his posts (and has made his arguments, [i]without[/i] the "D-bag" type name calling and childish antics, towards other BMs) and has always pretty much, stuck to providing good counterpoints to the topics of political discussion.

Clear enough?

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2771953]Your response seems to be of a guy with a lack of simple math skills. I'll post the link, timeline and the very first debunked myth about it again, which you seem to have swallowed hook, line and sinker all along:

[B]Interstate Highway System - The Myths.
Myth #1:
President Eisenhower conceived the Interstate System.[/B]

[URL]https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/interstatemyths.cfm[/URL]

This time around I highlighted in [B]Bold[/B] the dates of its conception and initial legislation, all of which pre-date Eisenhower's election, and the statement flat out debunking that often repeated myth about it being Eisenhower's idea, conception, lifelong dream, whim, whatever..[/QUOTE]You can visit the same site and get a different spin on the history. If you visit the same site you listed but go a little further and look under featured for Ike's Interstate at 50 you will get a different spin.

[URL]https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/history.cfm[/URL] but you need to type it.

This is the perfect example of why sources, in this case the same one, are worthless. You can look and find a source to back up whatever.

Funny about tee time. Definitely agree on that one.

P.S: I was a math wiz in my much younger days and math has nothing to do with this discussion. You took my original post the wrong way and started with the wise ass remarks and I followed with same. Enough said about everything.

Ps2: same hook, line and sinker that you swallowed.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2772288]Elvis, If your going to make up false claims and project any such baises, bigotry, prejudices, hate speech, name calling, slurs and slander on other BMs, it would behoove you to also provide
examples/proof of said scurrilous infractions, from the accused BMs.[/QUOTE]LOL. False claims? You yourself have called Trump the devil so much that you think you are stating a fact instead of displaying how arrogant you are. When you call a president the devil, you are calling him evil and all his 75 million supporters at worst evil and at best stupid.

So sorry, Spidy, the only thing less surprising than your outrage is how clueless you are about yourself. You are acting like a KKK member offended for being called a racist.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2772242]Krysten Sinema is not a Democrat.[/QUOTE]She was when she voted on this bill and would have not had unless it had a provision for protecting the rich. If you are not outright lying, at the very least you are being deceptive. You have a Democrat making sure the rich did not pay higher taxes which is what you Democratic douches are supposedly so against.

And as you say, the Democrats are the rich, and we got a first hand look at where that Covid stimulus money was going in the Twitter files.

While regular businesses with hard working people were shut down, we saw the gobs of money tossed to the Twitter censors and their FBI overloads. That was "essential" labor donchaknow.

And I know that Dems are richer than Republicans because the new game is taking over government and making sure government money flows to the companies which support the Democrats. I repeat, look at where the stimulus money went and who it benefitted the most.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2772242]So whatever Repubs, Pro Repub Bothsiders, Pro Repub Neithersiders or whatever think they know about a complex national economy like that of the USA is practically irrelevant.[/QUOTE]And how is that portfolio doing Tooms since April when I called you out on your holding stocks when the Fed was raising rates?

Oh, yeah, I forgot. You do not check it. It is probably doing great.

2023 cannot be any worse. I mean, look who is in office right?

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2772565]She was when she voted on this bill and would have not had unless it had a provision for protecting the rich. If you are not outright lying, at the very least you are being deceptive. You have a Democrat making sure the rich did not pay higher taxes which is what you Democratic douches are supposedly so against.

And as you say, the Democrats are the rich, and we got a first hand look at where that Covid stimulus money was going in the Twitter files.

While regular businesses with hard working people were shut down, we saw the gobs of money tossed to the Twitter censors and their FBI overloads. That was "essential" labor donchaknow.

And I know that Dems are richer than Republicans because the new game is taking over government and making sure government money flows to the companies which support the Democrats. I repeat, look at where the stimulus money went and who it benefitted the most.

And how is that portfolio doing Tooms since April when I called you out on your holding stocks when the Fed was raising rates?

Oh, yeah, I forgot. You do not check it. It is probably doing great.

2023 cannot be any worse. I mean, look who is in office right?[/QUOTE]Sinema was a DINO at the time. Now she is openly not a Democrat. You either hadn't been informed about the truth of it, deceptively stated or outright lied that she IS a Democrat.

As a DINO, she voted to help the wealthy get wealthier at the great expense of everyone else just like ALL of the Repub Senators did.

My portfolio is doing fine without my hourly, daily, weekly or monthly attention, thanks.

How was your portfolio doing at this same point in Trump's presidency when you apparently didn't short the market at his election or inauguration yet it is likely the stock market will have done better by now under Biden than it did under Trump?

Maybe your trusted formula actually should have been based on which Party won the White House rather than that yield curve thingy. It would have worked out better for you at this point in each of the two most recent presidencies. And it would have worked out much, much, much better for you if you had done it that way in the previous 5-6 presidencies!

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2772454]You can visit the same site and get a different spin on the history. If you visit the same site you listed but go a little further and look under featured for Ike's Interstate at 50 you will get a different spin.

[URL]https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/history.cfm[/URL] but you need to type it.

This is the perfect example of why sources, in this case the same one, are worthless. You can look and find a source to back up whatever.

Funny about tee time. Definitely agree on that one.

P.S: I was a math wiz in my much younger days and math has nothing to do with this discussion. You took my original post the wrong way and started with the wise ass remarks and I followed with same. Enough said about everything.

Ps2: same hook, line and sinker that you swallowed.[/QUOTE]My source was the Federal Highway Administration. I don't think you will find them contradicting the myths they took the extraordinary time and effort to debunk that you have bought all these years elsewhere in that source.

Clearly, they were so weary of hearing the myths you repeated here repeated everywhere for so many decades that they decided to devote an entire section of their site to debunking them and officially set the record straight once and for all.

LOL. Whenever the topic of "What meaningful accomplishment have Repubs done for America in the past 20,30, 50 or 100 years" comes up, some poor ill-informed pro-Repub soul inevitably races to that "Eisenhower gave us the Interstate Highway System" myth.

But he didn't.

Oh, no doubt that mythical spin on it probably began in 1956, almost 20 years after the hard legislative work and planning began, just to make it look like some great Ike idea and accomplishment. Mainstream Media were no less pro Repub then than they are now.

The Federal Highway Administration simply got sick of being asked about it so often to settle bar bets or whatever that they finally had to include the fully debunking of that myth as well as a couple of others you tried to float here right on their website.

And, mind you, if you scroll down that page you will see the information was updated in 2019. That was a time when the latest Repub in the White House had already flushed Trillions down the shitter with nothing but fewer jobs created and zero economic gain to show for it. And it was also an administration chock full of the most and biggest liars in USA potus administration history.

So if there was ever a time when Repubs could have gotten into the government data bases to re-write and revise history, twist and spin it to make it at least appear that, yep, once upon a time in the past 100 years a Repub really did do something meaningful for America, that was the time for it.

But they couldn't.

[QUOTE=Elvis 2008;2772561]LOL. False claims? You yourself have called Trump the devil so much that you think you are stating a fact instead of displaying how arrogant you are. When you call a president the devil, you are calling him evil and all his 75 million supporters at worst evil and at best stupid. ... [/QUOTE]

Classic Elvis, projection, false equivalencies and wrongheaded thinking. Elvis logic, at its best (or should I say worst).

But just for [b]fun, laughs[/b] and [b]giggles[/b], let's follow Elvis' unhinged logic for a moment, down the rabbit hole.

Notice, that in the magical world of Elvis logic, he and the 75 million supports bleed "orange" and anything negatively said in the media, about Agent Orange, (for reasons unknown) is internalize and projected on one's self, and seen as a real and a personal affront.

So since Donnie [b]"the devil"[/b] Dummkopf (aka.Trump, aka.Agent Orange) has behaved very badly and has been called out by the media, for such transgressions, according Elvis' logic, by extension, that would make him and the the 75 million supporters (which are really only just temporary voters), personified as being:

• Lairs
• Pussy Grabbers
• Tax cheats
• Grifter
• Losers
• the Orange Baboons
• Donnie Dumbasses
• Putin's Puppets
• Racists
• Incompetent
• Clowns
• Narcissists
• Bullies
• Ignorant
• Idiots

Welcome to the political magical world of Elvis logic. No political "fairy dust" necessary, to conjure up delusions of MAGA self-loathing!

[b]Donald Trump called ‘the devil’ by Mexican economic minister[/b]
[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/border/2016/09/22/mexicos-economy-minister-calls-trump-devil-nafta-stance/ [/URL]
[URL]https://www.newsweek.com/mexico-devil-talk-trump-ildefonso-guajardo-villarreal-immigrants-deportation-501375 [/URL]

According to Elvis logic, all Mexicans, are now racists? Perhaps you shouldn't monger there anymore?

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2771053]Well, it would be so much easier for Spidy and the rest of us to do that if only Repubs would for the love of gawd stop producing the worst results in history whenever the American electorate is careless, distracted, suckered or dumb enough to give them so much as a Red Tinkle opportunity to do it.

Somewhere around Reagan's first horrific term as potus, Repubs simply gave up trying to produce anything but their usual historic crap results while also deciding it would be easier and more politically rewarding for them to devote all their time trolling Dems and trying to thwart consistently superior Dem results instead. You know, to "own the libs".

They have essentially been running election campaigns on that "platform" ever since. And, post-1988, that "platform" has pretty much been a bust for them in terms of winning the most votes in presidential races. Which is obviously a big reason they then had to add rigging, cheating, suppression of likely Dem votes, violent, cop-killing insurrections, attempts to overturn free and fair elections and overthrow American democracy to their "own the libs" election campaign strategy.

Hey, maybe a few Trump Digital Trading Card gifts will win us over and we'll stop rankling you with the truth about "Repubs bad, Dems good. ".[/QUOTE]So true!

This reminds me of something funny, I heard recently. Someone asked, what's with the QAnon/Repubs, weird obsession with [b]"secure metal boxes/containers"[/b]?

So, whether it's Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, wanting to removing mailboxes around the country, or various red/swing states removing and banning drop-off boxes or QAnon/MAGA vigilante creepy stalker drop-box watchers, the Repubs, look even more half-witted and crazy, as they demonize and blame those bad "secure metal boxes" for their election loses and their voting numbers.

It is just so comically hilarious, as they continually sell the idea of the bad "metal boxes" ploy, to their gullible base, as means to avoid the hard truths & real problems within the party.

Instead of asking the tough questions: ie.

• Did you run a good candidate?
• Did you properly vet your candidate?
• Did you put forth good ideas, polices and/or messages?
• Did you run a good campaign?
• Was your campaign relevant/specific the needs your constituency or just more Trump election denial rhetoric?
• Did you talk to your constituency?
• Are we putting out a product that a majority of Americans want? Or just more hard line Repub dogma?

And finally, if blaming those bad "metal boxes", isn't enough, the QAnon/Repub spectacle of pantomime and theater, will get out and parade around in nonsense about election fraud, in an attempt to please their base and the pretense of doing something meaningful.

Nope, QAnon\Repubs would rather blame bad "metal boxes", than to introspectively examine party ideology and policies.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2772599]My source was the Federal Highway Administration. I don't think you will find them contradicting the myths they took the extraordinary time and effort to debunk that you have bought all these years elsewhere in that source.

Clearly, they were so weary of hearing the myths you repeated here repeated everywhere for so many decades that they decided to devote an entire section of their site to debunking them and officially set the record straight once and for all.

LOL. Whenever the topic of "What meaningful accomplishment have Repubs done for America in the past 20,30, 50 or 100 years" comes up, some poor ill-informed pro-Repub soul inevitably races to that "Eisenhower gave us the Interstate Highway System" myth.

But he didn't.

Oh, no doubt that mythical spin on it probably began in 1956, almost 20 years after the hard legislative work and planning began, just to make it look like some great Ike idea and accomplishment. Mainstream Media were no less pro Repub then than they are now.

The Federal Highway Administration simply got sick of being asked about it so often to settle bar bets or whatever that they finally had to include the fully debunking of that myth as well as a couple of others you tried to float here right on their website.

And, mind you, if you scroll down that page you will see the information was updated in 2019. That was a time when the latest Repub in the White House had already flushed Trillions down the shitter with nothing but fewer jobs created and zero economic gain to show for it. And it was also an administration chock full of the most and biggest liars in USA potus administration history.

So if there was ever a time when Repubs could have gotten into the government data bases to re-write and revise history, twist and spin it to make it at least appear that, yep, once upon a time in the past 100 years a Repub really did do something meaningful for America, that was the time for it.

But they couldn't.[/QUOTE]Did you see that I used the same Federal Highway Administration site? Cherry pick all you want. You seem to want to make this personal and want to make it a the vs are debate. For what it's worth, I have been a straight party the for longer than you have been out of diapers which from the way you act wasn't that long ago. But because of people like you and the way Dems ass kiss the are's I may choose otherwise in the future. Tip O'Neal the red nosed alcoholic had Raygun's dick in his mouth most of the time. Some Irish brotherhood thing. Look at all the Dems who voted for the Iraq war. How about abandoning Al Frankin like they did for a stupid 30 year old harmless picture? By the way, when you're in line waiting for your dream puta, the guy who just blasted in her mouth may have been an are. So you will be like most of the the's in Washington. Like I said, I have been a straight party line Dem for over 53 years but that has now changed but I will never be a Republican either.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2772288]Elvis, If your going to make up false claims and project any such baises, bigotry, prejudices, hate speech, name calling, slurs and slander on other BMs, it would behoove you to also provide
examples/proof of said scurrilous infractions, from the accused BMs.

But no doubt and true to form, much like your QAnon\Repub election denying brethren, who continually make up false claims about election fraud by the Dems, without proof and substantiated evidential facts, you [b]only serve to incriminate yourself[/b] of the very thing you are accusing other of being.

[u]Just for the Record:[/u]
For the record, when you say [i]"...there are against people who vote Republican."[/i], it couldn't be further from the truth. Unlike the Repubs, who insidiously and maniacally plot to subvert, suppress and deny Americans the right to vote, I love Americans who get out and vote, period.

What now? You lost me on so many levels with, [i]"Again, PVM, Tooms, and Spidy are the most prejudiced people..."[/i]. Really? Compared to whom? How would you know? Is Tiny 12, really supposed to believe that?

Just because we (Dems) provide opposing arguments, counterpoints and disagree with (what I often consider, IMHO) political Repub rhetoric or right-wing dogma, you call us [i]"the most prejudiced
people"[/i] and [b]"there are against people who vote Republican."[/b]Really!? Is that really what you think?

[u]Just to be clear:[/u]
[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], I don't care (or give a flying f#cK,), if you vote for the Dems, [b]the Repubs[/b], or for the Independents. [u]I care about[/u] the ease of access, available, seamless and uncomplicated voting; and of course, [b]the right for ALL eligible Americans to VOTE![/b] PERIOD!!!

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], I'm HERE to argue the governing politics and policies of Dems and Repub political parties, or politics from the World at large, as it my pertain to the US. And of course those politicians, placed in office to "dutifully", "responsibly" and with earnest "accountability", deemed to carry out and serve the will of their respective constituencies.

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], I'm mostly "against" the boneheaded, knucklehead, wrongheaded, misguided, bias, unfair, unjust, discriminatory and partisan policies and laws that go against rights, wishes of the majority of Americans, be it Dems or Repubs. It just so happens, Repubs fall into this category more often than not.

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], while I suspect YOU, Elvis, may take the discussion here personally, I DO NOT! ...IT'S NOT PERSONAL for me! (Truth be told, it actually been fun, time permitted!)

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], you continue to be you. I wouldn't have it any other way. Continue to call me names, if that makes you sleep better at nights, as I'm a big-boy and can take it (figuratively speaking). [u]But don't project your biases, bigotry or prejudices on me[/u], without providing examples of me committing said infractions.

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], (although you and Tiny 12 may think otherwise), it's not a "Dems good" and "Repubs bad" thing either. I just happen to think and believe, by and large, Dems do a way better job in office, servicing the needs of most Americans, than when Repubs are in office. Heck, if Repubs made better polices and stood for more just & equal rights and laws for Americans, I'd vote Red.

[b]TO BE CLEAR[/b], (for [b]Tiny 12[/b] and other BMs reading this), Elvis, I know you posted/responded to Tiny 12, but I just wanted to MAKE IT CLEAR, I am not attacking Tiny 12. Tiny 12 has always been respectful in his posts (and has made his arguments, [i]without[/i] the "D-bag" type name calling and childish antics, towards other BMs) and has always pretty much, stuck to providing good counterpoints to the topics of political discussion.

Clear enough?[/QUOTE]One thing the Repubs are [B]excellent at[/B] is calling every source that isn't rightwingnut-media-based [B]"fake news[/B]. They forget that Goebbels coined the exact same phrase (but in German, naturally) 80-or-90-some-odd years ago.

Another thing they are [B]excellent at[/B] is [B]"projection"[/B]. I won't bother to describe what "projection" is and certainly not with a source for the reason mentioned above.

Repubs are also [B]excellent at[/B] misusing terms. For instance, they love calling the "National Socialist German Workers Party" "socialist" because the title contains the word "socialist". They rage against ANTIFA and forget that, depending upon their age, their fathers or grandfathers, uncles, etc. Fought AGAINST fascism 80-some-odd years ago.

Repubs have yet to explain how their "red wave" of 2022 turned into a "pink trickle" other than to say, without evidence of course, that various elections were "stolen".

There's a reason that I call them the Moron Brigade.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2772193]Superb presentation on economic decline of USA, with parallels to 20th century Germany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS-eCnCneyA[/QUOTE]No offense, TK, but you are off the boat with all this anti-American stuff. Consider this. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States[/URL].

He Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimates the Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) contains between 66.6 and 115.1 billion barrels (10.59109 and 18.30109 m3) of undiscovered technically recoverable crude oil, with a mean estimate of 85.9 billion barrels (13.66109 m3).

At $100 a barrel, that is $8. 6 trillion worth of oil and to be clear TK, that is with current technology. Guys in the oil industry I have spoken would easily double that 86 billion barrel estimate. And if you assume better technology and drilling, you could get to $30 trillion and that is just one American asset.

And our government owns huge portions of the Western States, 2. 27 billon acres worth trillions of dollars as well.

The American Midwest has the most productive farm land in the world. Our canal system has more river waterways then the rest of the world combined. Our transportation system, though not without flaws, is also the world's best and of course, we have the strongest military with trillions in equipment.

If you look at the debt in and of itself, which is what everyone does who wants to call the USA's downfall imminent, it is scary, but they always compare it to other things. Countries tend to default when 30% of their total revenue goes to paying down debt. In the USA, last I looked, that number was 7%. And looking at debt without looking at assets is a fool's errand.

Cryptocurrency / bitcoin was supposed to be an antidote to the endless American money printing as was gold. One has gone tits up while the other has done nothing. If a Colombian held his savings in dollars versus pesos over the last 3 years, he would be like 50 or 60% richer today.

Anyone thinking China is going to overtake the USA has not looked into China much. They have the mother of all real estate bubbles and the debt they have accumulated at the local level is at nose bleed levels. Comparing the USA to 1920 Germany is literally insane.

Elvis has been banging the heart risk drum for a long time. Whilst I agree on the corruption in pharma and the stupidity of the vax mandates, I have been ignoring the heart issue.

But this chat is very interesting:

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3MPnBpfrRk[/URL]

Don't worry, you won't see it on mainstream TV, bcos alternative ideas are censored in the west.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2772799]Elvis has been banging the heart risk drum for a long time. Whilst I agree on the corruption in pharma and the stupidity of the vax mandates, I have been ignoring the heart issue.

But this chat is very interesting:

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3MPnBpfrRk[/URL]

Don't worry, you won't see it on mainstream TV, bcos alternative ideas are censored in the west.[/QUOTE]TK, Systemic lupus erythematosus or lupus is an autoimmune disorder where the body attacks its own soft tissues. One thing seen with lupus is known as a lupus anticoagulant or antiphospholipid syndrome. This is where activating the immune system causes the immune system to make blood clots.

Covid causes blood clots or more correctly it causes the immune system to make blood clots and yes, the process is often like lupus. [URL]https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2027508[/URL].

In their letter to the editor, Bowles et al. (July 16 issue) 1 report on a study in which 20% of the patients with Covid-19 had a prolonged activated partial-thromboplastin time (aPTT), and in 31 of 34 patients, evidence of lupus anticoagulant was detected by means of plasma-based laboratory methods. These findings provide support for a phenomenon described by Wenzel et al. , who found evidence of lupus anticoagulant in 52% of critically ill patients (before the Covid-19 pandemic).

So if you taking a vaccine and "activating the immune system" which fights Covid, wouldn't you expect blood clots? To me, you would have to prove not that the vaccine does produce clots but that it does not.

And yeah, all the data the doctor in that video lists supports the idea that yes, the vaccine does cause a dramatic and often deadly increase from blood clots.

And yes, if the vaccine manufacturers were not given blanket immunity, they would be bankrupt right now from all the lawsuits.

FWIW, TK, covid has been making a comeback but it pares in comparison to the influenza A and RSV being seen now. Of these three virus types, patients with Covid are the least sick by far.

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2772755]Did you see that I used the same Federal Highway Administration site? Cherry pick all you want. You seem to want to make this personal and want to make it a the vs are debate. For what it's worth, I have been a straight party the for longer than you have been out of diapers which from the way you act wasn't that long ago. But because of people like you and the way Dems ass kiss the are's I may choose otherwise in the future. Tip O'Neal the red nosed alcoholic had Raygun's dick in his mouth most of the time. Some Irish brotherhood thing. Look at all the Dems who voted for the Iraq war. How about abandoning Al Frankin like they did for a stupid 30 year old harmless picture? By the way, when you're in line waiting for your dream puta, the guy who just blasted in her mouth may have been an are. So you will be like most of the the's in Washington. Like I said, I have been a straight party line Dem for over 53 years but that has now changed but I will never be a Republican either.[/QUOTE]Yes, I can read and I can count.

Your very first post about this was that "Eisenhower got the idea (for the Interstate Highway System) from Germany after wwI".

Your second statement about it was that "Ike did get them started in 1956. ".

Sorry, YOUR link and MY link, the SAME link, refutes those statements and debunk them as the myths they have always been.

The 1956 signing was not the culmination of anything Eisenhower conceived of, started, proposed, fought for or legislated. All of that started in 1939 under FDR, not 1953 or 1956 under Eisenhower. 1939 is earlier than both 1953 and 1956. That's where the math part comes in.

The 1956 signing does not contradict what OUR link states and what I characterized about Eisenhower simply saying, "Sure, go ahead with the plan, I won't try to stop it. ".

In seasonal Merry Christmas terms, OUR link shows that somebody else, not Eisenhower, conceived of a great gift for America, somebody else, not Eisenhower, researched what would be the best version of that gift, somebody else, not Eisenhower, shopped for the gift, somebody else, not Eisenhower, bought the gift, somebody else, not Eisenhower, carried the gift home, somebody else, not Eisenhower, wrapped the gift, somebody else, not Eisenhower, placed the gift under the tree, then Eisenhower signed the gift card.

Kudos to Ike for not trying to throw the gift in the trash bin and instead simply signing the gift card and heading back to the golf course. But that is essentially the only thing he had to do with that nearly 20 year conception, plan and legislative journey.

But neither of the Eisenhower-related myths you repeated here are supported by OUR link while my assertions about them are.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2772985]Yes, I can read and I can count.

Your very first post about this was that "Eisenhower got the idea (for the Interstate Highway System) from Germany after wwI".

Your second statement about it was that "Ike did get them started in 1956. ".

Sorry, YOUR link and MY link, the SAME link, refutes those statements and debunk them as the myths they have always been.

The 1956 signing was not the culmination of anything Eisenhower conceived of, started, proposed, fought for or legislated. All of that started in 1939 under FDR, not 1953 or 1956 under Eisenhower. 1939 is earlier than both 1953 and 1956. That's where the math part comes in.

The 1956 signing does not contradict what OUR link states and what I characterized about Eisenhower simply saying, "Sure, go ahead with the plan, I won't try to stop it. ".

In seasonal Merry Christmas terms, OUR link shows that somebody else, not Eisenhower, conceived of a great gift for America, somebody else, not Eisenhower, researched what would be the best version of that gift, somebody else, not Eisenhower, shopped for the gift, somebody else, not Eisenhower, bought the gift, somebody else, not Eisenhower, carried the gift home, somebody else, not Eisenhower, wrapped the gift, somebody else, not Eisenhower, placed the gift under the tree, then Eisenhower signed the gift card.

Kudos to Ike for not trying to throw the gift in the trash bin and instead simply signing the gift card and heading back to the golf course. But that is essentially the only thing he had to do with that nearly 20 year conception, plan and legislative journey.

But neither of the Eisenhower-related myths you repeated here are supported by OUR link while my assertions about them are.[/QUOTE]Well I still disagree with you and you with me and to tell you the truth I really don't care about this and I doubt anyone else does either since it's you and me only. In any event, Happy Hollidays. If you're in USA and all who are, I hope your weather is better than what happening in my area. This really is a great time to be in Colombia perfect weather, lots of awesome lights and a great mood in the air. By the way I heard that Ike wanted to help Colombia build an interstate system there too or maybe it was FDR.

I've been working on the Book of Tiny, which will be part of the scripture of the Free Markets Church of Tiny. The Book of Tiny preaches a message of love and redemption. But it has come to my attention that the Book of Tiny must be accompanied by fire and brimstone. That's the only way this will work. There's the New Testament and the Old Testament. The good cop and the bad cop. And now, there will be the Book of Tiny and the Book of Elvis.

I have decided to take some of the writings of Elvis and provide commentary. This is a lot like what you might have done in Sunday School, when you take a verse and then talk about it for an hour, to extract a deep and profound understanding of the words. And so I shall begin.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2772026]Isn't the whole point of racism not looking at people as a group and to get to know them as individuals when determining their worth? A[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2772561]When you call a president the devil, you are calling him evil and all his 75 million supporters at worst evil and at best stupid.[/QUOTE]Barton Swaim, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has provided an excellent guide to understanding the words of Elvis I've quoted above. Some excerpts appear below.

The most obvious change in American politics this century is the sorting of voters along educational lines. The Democrats are increasingly the party of educated urban elites; the GOP belongs to the white working class. The dispute is over suburban and minority voters. The latter still plump mostly for Democrats, although the party's social radicalism is pushing them toward the GOP. Voters with impressive educational credentials tend to be Democrats, and those without them lean strongly Republican.

That one party is the educated partythat its members see themselves, in some respects accurately, as more cultured and informed than their opponentshas generated an intellectual pathology that is obvious to everyone but themselves. Adherents of the smart-people party have lost the capacity for self-criticism. Which on its face makes sense. If your views are by definition intelligent, those of your critics must be dumb. Who needs self-reflection?

We can start to understand the Democrats' predicament by ridding ourselves of a set of metaphors. For a decade or more, we've been told that left and right live in "silos" or "bubbles" or "echo chambers" or "information cocoons. " The left watch MSNBC and read the New York Times, and the right watch Fox News and listen to talk radio.

In any case, the silo / bubble metaphor doesn't describe American politics in the 2020's for the simple reason that there is no silo or bubble. Or if there is, it's very large and almost exclusively populated by adherents of the smart-people party.

If you're on the right, you simply can't isolate yourself from the habits and attitudes of left-liberal progressivism. They are everywhere. The most determined imbiber of right-wing opinion still watches television and movies and reads the mainstream press. The left-liberal outlook is expressed everywhere in these media, and generally it isn't expressed as viewpoint but as established fact.

The left-liberal outlook has triumphed across American culturein corporate boardrooms, in government agencies, in sports and entertainment institutions, in K-12 education bureaucracies, in universities and in media organizations. [B]But that is precisely what has robbed progressives, especially those in the political class and in the media, of any ability to criticize themselves or doubt their own righteousness. They dont engage with serious arguments advanced by the other side. They live in a world in which it is possible to pass through a month without encountering much in the way of serious conservative opinion. When they do encounter a conservative view, it is precategorized as fringe or extreme by the calm, omniscient NPR voice that relates its content.

And so progressives have become, if I could put it bluntly, incurious and lazy. Every conservative journalist born in the last 70 or 80 years has, early in his career, come to the sad realization that liberal writers and intellectuals, the people conservatives are so careful to read and react to, dont actually read conservatives or know much about the right. Their attitude recalls that wonderful line in Casablanca when Ugarte (Peter Lorre) asks Rick (Humphrey Bogart), You despise me, dont you? Rick’s answer: “If I gave you any thought, I probably would.”

....Something about Mr. Trump gave Democrats and liberal journalists all the emotional license they needed to discount, once and for all, any possibility that a Republican might have a point. No party that could nominate Mr. Trump deserved further thought; the GOP had, in their eyes, defenestrated what was left of its legitimacy.[/B].

Consider the past two years of Democratic governance. A slender majority in the USA House and a 50-50 tie in the Senate somehow led Democrats to believe they had no opposition to speak of. At times they seemed literally to believe this, as when Sen. Bernie Sanders and others fulminated against his Democratic colleagues Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for resisting President Biden's so-called Build Back Better billas if the bill had two opponents and not 52.

On economics, Republicans warned the administration in early 2021 about the danger that trillions in spending would inflate the currency. Their warnings were ignored. Inflation exploded, and the administration denied it. In August 2022 President Biden asserted that inflation was "zero percent. " he was, absurdly, comparing that month's prices to the previous month's, ignoring everything that happened before July.

A global energy shortage has sent gas and electricity prices skyward. Congressional Democrats and the administration might easily have backed off their green commitments, promoted fracking and increased domestic oil production, at least on a temporary basis. That would have brought prices down, which was the only outcome Mr. Biden and other elected Democrats appeared to care about. I am not aware that such a policy change was ever considered.

Rarely in politics does anyone admit fault. You don't expect high-ranking members of either party to acknowledge straightforwardly that they were wrong about anything. But people sometimes adjust, even if they don't admit they're adjusting. [B] After the 2022 midterm elections, in which Democrats outperformed expectations but still lost the U.S. House, the president was asked what, in light of the fact that three quarters of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction, he plans to do differently in the future. His reply: Nothing. You can discount Mr. Bidens words for senescence, but that answer expressed perfectly the solipsistic self-confidence of his party.

Even if the Democrats had been crushed in the 2022 midterm elections, they would have been unable to adjust. Their cultural dominance discourages them from changing course, which is why they can be counted on to invent exogenous reasons for electoral defeats: an allegedly racist TV ad in 1988, shenanigans in Florida in 2000, faulty voting machines in Ohio in 2004, collusion with Russia in 2016. Mr. Trump adopted this custom with abandon in 2020, but Republicans, who arent encouraged by elite culture to think themselves infallible, usually blame each other for electoral losses. Hence the 2013 autopsy, as wrongheaded as it was. There is no Democratic correlative to such a document.[/B].

[URL]https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-smart-party-never-learns-democrats-self-reflection-elite-culture-media-universities-covid-inflation-election-excuses-11670592902[/URL]

I hope you've enjoyed this commentary. Please send your tax deductible contributions to Church of Tiny, Account #123456, SWIFT Code ABCDEF, First National Bank of the Cayman Islands.

And remember, Milton Friedman loves you!

[QUOTE=JustTK;2772799]Elvis has been banging the heart risk drum for a long time. Whilst I agree on the corruption in pharma and the stupidity of the vax mandates, I have been ignoring the heart issue.

But this chat is very interesting:

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3MPnBpfrRk[/URL]

Don't worry, you won't see it on mainstream TV, bcos alternative ideas are censored in the west.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2772812]....Covid causes blood clots or more correctly it causes the immune system to make blood clots and yes, the process is often like lupus. [URL]https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2027508[/URL].....
[/QUOTE]Another thought provoking link JustTK. I've been super busy with work and family lately, so have only managed to watch about 1/2 the video so far. I'm coming away with a very different view from you and Elvis. The piece pisses me off too, but because I think it's indicative of how screwed up the American health care system is. The drug companies are pushing high cost pharmaceuticals and treatments that may offer negligible benefit. Government is fining the hell out of them, $14 billion according to the cardiologist, further running up costs. And then of course there's the issue of the plaintiff's lawyers and their lawsuits against the drug companies, which wasn't even brought up.

I tend to believe this guy when he's talking about statins and the like. I don't know, because my doctor's never prescribed those for me, so I've never looked at them closely.

I think he's probably largely full of crap about the COVID vaccine. I say that after initially thinking maybe he's on to something and I've been mistaken. But looking at CDC and UK data, the death rates from heart attacks and other heart disease haven't really gone up since the start of 2021. From listening to him you'd think that deaths from heart disease should be up 20%. They're not.

A second point he brought up, that you had to vaccinate 7320 people over the age of 18 to save one life during the Omicron wave, is absurd. In the USA, about 300,000 people have died from Omicron, or 1 out of every 1,000 Americans. Given the vaccines proven ability to drastically lower the risk of hospitalization and death among older and higher risk individuals, I just don't believe his number. He also said you had to vaccinate 230 over the age 18 to save one life during the Delta wave. I don't really have a problem with that number, it sounds reasonable.

On shows like Carlson's, they make a big deal over the tiny chance of dying from COVID. Well, it's not tiny if you're old or high risk, and this may just stick around longer than, say, the 1918 flu epidemic. There will probably be more waves. People may get COVID many times over their lifetimes. The vaccine trains your immune system to deal with the virus. I'd much rather get that training through vaccination instead of disease.

I've gotten the vaccines and three boosters. If I were a young person, the decision would be more difficult. I'm convinced for people like me, the risk of dying from COVID the disease, as a result of blood clots, or myocardia, or whatever, is a lot higher than dying from the vaccine, as a result of blood clots, myocardia, etc. For younger people that potentially are going to get boosted annually, I'm not sure whether or not the risk reward ratio is in favor of getting the vaccine. I suspect it is, but I don't know.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773224]I tend to believe this guy when he's talking about statins and the like. I don't know, because my doctor's never prescribed those for me, so I've never looked at them closely.

I think he's probably largely full of crap about the COVID vaccine. I say that after initially thinking maybe he's on to something and I've been mistaken. But looking at CDC and UK data, the death rates from heart attacks and other heart disease haven't really gone up since the start of 2021. From listening to him you'd think that deaths from heart disease should be up 20%. They're not.

A second point he brought up, that you had to vaccinate 7320 people over the age of 18 to save one life during the Omicron wave, is absurd. In the USA, about 300,000 people have died from Omicron, or 1 out of every 1,000 Americans. Given the vaccines proven ability to drastically lower the risk of hospitalization and death among older and higher risk individuals, I just don't believe his number. He also said you had to vaccinate 230 over the age 18 to save one life during the Delta wave. I don't really have a problem with that number, it sounds reasonable.

I've gotten the vaccines and three boosters. If I were a young person, the decision would be more difficult. I'm convinced for people like me, the risk of dying from COVID the disease, as a result of blood clots, or myocardia, or whatever, is a lot higher than dying from the vaccine, as a result of blood clots, myocardia, etc. For younger people that potentially are going to get boosted annually, I'm not sure whether or not the risk reward ratio is in favor of getting the vaccine. I suspect it is, but I don't know.[/QUOTE]I thiink the guy sounds very credible. He is not the only medical professional that holds these views. And don't forget that these views are being iwdely surpressed by mainstream and social media. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to provide my own evidence either way, and I doubt that you are either. Likesays, I have steered clear of medical claims. Whereas I do know a man that would be up for the task. Elvis! .

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773224]Another thought provoking link JustTK. I've been super busy with work and family lately, so have only managed to watch about 1/2 the video so far. I'm coming away with a very different view from you and Elvis. The piece pisses me off too, but because I think it's indicative of how screwed up the American health care system is. The drug companies are pushing high cost pharmaceuticals and treatments that may offer negligible benefit. Government is fining the hell out of them, $14 billion according to the cardiologist, further running up costs. And then of course there's the issue of the plaintiff's lawyers and their lawsuits against the drug companies, which wasn't even brought up.

I tend to believe this guy when he's talking about statins and the like. I don't know, because my doctor's never prescribed those for me, so I've never looked at them closely.

I think he's probably largely full of crap about the COVID vaccine. I say that after initially thinking maybe he's on to something and I've been mistaken. But looking at CDC and UK data, the death rates from heart attacks and other heart disease haven't really gone up since the start of 2021. From listening to him you'd think that deaths from heart disease should be up 20%. They're not..[/QUOTE]Yes, the guy is [B]absolutely[/B] full of crap and so is every COVID vaccine denier. Yes, there have been reports of blood clots. Since the vaccine deniers don't believe anything from the CDC, here's some data from the UK's Public Health service: "Up to 28 April 2021, the MHRA received 242 reports of thrombosis events with low platelets of which 93 were cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), out of a total of 22.6 million first doses ofCOVID-19 AZ vaccine given by that date in the UK. " I'm not going to bother doing the math because the vaccine deniers will say that the math is "fake news", but when I went to school, 242 reported cases out of 22.6 million doses is an extremely small percentage. Even if the number of reported cases is off by a factor of 10, the percentage is extremely small. [URL]https://www.publichealth.hscni.net/sites/default/files/2021-07/COVID-19_V4_AZ_factsheet_9pp_A4_11_07_21_final.pdf[/URL].

What is clear, though, is that regardless of how safe in general the COVID vaccines are, they vaccine deniers will [B]always[/B] come up with some cockamamie bullshit. Just as they do with the effectiveness of ivermectin. Or their contention that Jewish Space lasers changed votes in the 2020 election. Or that raking forest floors eliminates forest fires. Or that Democrats eat babies in the basement of a basementless pizza parlor in the capitol.

Carlson is also full of it. Before the mid-term elections he was spouting all kids of nonsense "law and order" and "open borders" and "inflation". Now that the election is over and the "red wave" that Carlson and the Moron Brigade predicted turned into a "pink trickle", Carlson has moved on to other things.

[QUOTE=ChuchoLoco;2773158]Well I still disagree with you and you with me and to tell you the truth I really don't care about this and I doubt anyone else does either since it's you and me only. In any event, Happy Hollidays. If you're in USA and all who are, I hope your weather is better than what happening in my area. This really is a great time to be in Colombia perfect weather, lots of awesome lights and a great mood in the air. By the way I heard that Ike wanted to help Colombia build an interstate system there too or maybe it was FDR.[/QUOTE]Happy Holidays to you too!

I moved to Bangkok 10 years ago so the weather is great here right now too. And I would say the Christmas lights and decorations, while a bit subdued compared to pre Trump's Pandemic times, are still quite lovely and add to the festive environment.

I hear it once crossed Eisenhower's mind back in 1919 that Colombian coffee tasted pretty good. Therefore, many people credit him for spearheading the coffee industry there. I think FDR was more of a hot tea man.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2773325]Carlson is also full of it. Before the mid-term elections he was spouting all kids of nonsense "law and order" and "open borders" and "inflation". Now that the election is over and the "red wave" that Carlson and the Moron Brigade predicted turned into a "pink trickle", Carlson has moved on to other things.[/QUOTE]Carlson is a shrill little alpha male twit, while he constantly works to undermine the country that made his family rich selling TV dinners. He sides with our enemy Russia while bending over backwards to undermine our ally Ukraine. And although there were a few successes, his fantasies and brand of far right populism were overwhelmingly rejected at the polls last month. And though the battle against these traitors continues, those who oppose them have plenty to celebrate at the moment.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2773325]Yes, the guy is [B]absolutely[/B] full of crap and so is every COVID vaccine denier.[/QUOTE]Typical BS. Put everyone in the same basket so they can paint them the same colour. In shlt.

I am not a vax denier. I am a COVID disdent. Some vaxes are great for some ppll. But the global covid policy was a disaster and morallly criminal. These are different things. But, hey, whatever you say.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2773437]Typical BS. Put everyone in the same basket so they can paint them the same colour. In shlt.

I am not a vax denier. I am a COVID disdent. Some vaxes are great for some ppll. But the global covid policy was a disaster and morallly criminal. These are different things. But, hey, whatever you say.[/QUOTE]Not sure why you're upset. You ARE a Covid vaccine denier. Putting you in this basket is a right thing because this is the basket where you belong.

PVMonger didn't call you a vaccine denier, he called you a "COVID vaccine denier. " Your response only confirms that this is what you are.

But please feel free to tell me I misunderstand what you've been saying. What's a difference between a Covid denier and "Covid dissident"?

And of course, no such thing as a "global covid policy" has ever existed. But I'll try not to hold this against you.

And by the way. . .

Vaxes are great for some people? Wrong!

All major vaccines are great for all people save some incredibly rare instances of catastrophical side effects. This is why schools require ALL children to be vaxxed for a number of diseases.

Not SOME children.

And when moron "activist" parents are trying to play god we know what happens.

Fucking polio.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2773357]Happy Holidays to you too!

I moved to Bangkok 10 years ago so the weather is great here right now too. And I would say the Christmas lights and decorations, while a bit subdued compared to pre Trump's Pandemic times, are still quite lovely and add to the festive environment.

I hear it once crossed Eisenhower's mind back in 1919 that Colombian coffee tasted pretty good. Therefore, many people credit him for spearheading the coffee industry there. I think FDR was more of a hot tea man.[/QUOTE]Man, good for you! Bangkok for 10 years. I'm going to get there in next year or so. Besides everything else, it's probably almost a 100 degrees colder here in Chicago area. -4 F and with chill factor -25 or so.

I'm a coffee drinker and like my coffee like some of the women on my life.. Cold and bitter! Enjoy the holidays and all the days.

Ike Valdez coffee?

A book, Dr. Mary's Monkey, by Ed Haslam traces the early history of the polio vaccine that was cultured on monkey kidneys and an unsolved bizarre murder of a researcher in New Orleans. The book is backed up with many documents. Including one memo by FBI director and alleged gay queen J. Edgar Hoover forbidding the FBI from investigating the murder. Oswald's girlfriend was threatened into silence at the time, but 40: years later felt safe enough to publish a book.

Tucker Carlson, beta male twit, not "alpha. " As if the error wasn't obvious. Wink.

Trump is a beta also, bigtime. Want to see an alpha? Look at Zelensky, a man's man.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2773311]I thiink the guy sounds very credible. He is not the only medical professional that holds these views. And don't forget that these views are being iwdely surpressed by mainstream and social media. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to provide my own evidence either way, and I doubt that you are either. Likesays, I have steered clear of medical claims. Whereas I do know a man that would be up for the task. Elvis! .[/QUOTE]When I'm driving, I often listen to Doctor Radio. The physicians and researchers on the programs universally favor the COVID vaccine. Last night Dr. Marc Siegel, a frequent contributor to Fox News and the head of Doctor Radio, had Tony Fauci and some guy at Scripps who had a more impressive resume than even Fauci. I only caught about the last 10 minutes of the segment with Fauci.

Anyway, Siegel said the people who actually know COVID the best, the virologists, immunologists, public health experts, etc. , overwhelmingly believe the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risks. Siegel went on to say that it's frustrating when some random cardiologist comes up with largely bogus arguments not to get vaccinated. And yes, he did say Cardiologist. Maybe he was referring to Tucker Carlson's interviewee. The Scripps researcher, who's a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has co-written over 2,000 papers and three books (including papers on COVID), has 290,000 citations, and founded a department at Scripps, said he dearly wished that older and higher risk people would get vaccinated and get the boosters. He said only about 35% of people over 65 in the USA have gotten the Omicron booster, compared to over 80% in some European countries. Actually the primary message of the segment was that older people and high risk individuals should get the vaccine. Older vaccinated and boosted individuals probability of getting hospitalized by COVID is STILL 80% less. The doctors didn't appear to be as concerned about younger people, although both said long COVID, resulting from infection with Omicron, affects a lot more people and is more debilitating that many believe.

I can see how this could be counterintuitive. By now, most people living in the USA have had COVID, the disease, and/or been vaccinated. You build immunity through getting the disease. Say you've gotten COVID, maybe once, maybe two or three times. So why get the vaccine? Apparently smarter people than you and I who spend most of their time researching COVID believe there's still a lot of benefit from the vaccine and boosters, especially for older and high risk people. I'm inclined to follow their advice.

Siegel and the Scripps researcher both had great things to say about Paxlovid. The Scripps guy said the big arguments against Paxlovid, being rebound COVID and interactions with other drugs, were bogus.

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2773419]Carlson is a shrill little alpha male twit, while he constantly works to undermine the country that made his family rich selling TV dinners. He sides with our enemy Russia while bending over backwards to undermine our ally Ukraine. And although there were a few successes, his fantasies and brand of far right populism were overwhelmingly rejected at the polls last month. And though the battle against these traitors continues, those who oppose them have plenty to celebrate at the moment.[/QUOTE]An America populated mostly by Americans who think like Carlson would not be close to my ideal. He believes in Elizabeth Warren's economic policies and he's a social conservative. That said he's very right about some things. He was onto Purdue Pharmaceuticals before many. And a large percentage of the American population thinks like he does. If you're saying Americans who listen to and agree with Carlson are traitors, I have to disagree with you. If you believe that anyone who thinks American politicians shouldn't be giving Ukraine tens of billions while putting "0" pressure on Zelensky to bring the war to an end is a traitor, again, I disagree.

Only about 3% of Americans believe like I do, in social and classical economic liberalism. I don't think the other 97% are traitors. They're just misguided.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773622]An America populated mostly by Americans who think like Carlson would not be close to my ideal. He believes in Elizabeth Warren's economic policies and he's a social conservative. That said he's very right about some things. He was onto Purdue Pharmaceuticals before many. And a large percentage of the American population thinks like he does. If you're saying Americans who listen to and agree with Carlson are traitors, I have to disagree with you. If you believe that anyone who thinks American politicians shouldn't be giving Ukraine tens of billions while putting "0" pressure on Zelensky to bring the war to an end is a traitor, again, I disagree.

Only about 3% of Americans believe like I do, in social and classical economic liberalism. I don't think the other 97% are traitors. They're just misguided.[/QUOTE]Feliz Navidad.

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/12/24/carlson-cites-putin-threat-covid-sbf-and-inflation-among-favorite-lies-of-2022/[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773621]When I'm driving, I often listen to Doctor Radio. The physicians and researchers on the programs universally favor the COVID vaccine. Last night Dr. Marc Siegel, a frequent contributor to Fox News and the head of Doctor Radio, had Tony Fauci and some guy at Scripps who had a more impressive resume than even Fauci. I only caught about the last 10 minutes of the segment with Fauci.
[/QUOTE]The issue in the media is self-selection. Its been pointed out that journalists and editors are selected bcos of their values and line of thought (lack of critical thinking / skepticism). When asked, they always say "I am not censored, I have the freedom to write and say what I choose". But they miss the point. They have been screened and chosen bcos their owners already have faith that they will not write or say anything out of line. And so the mainstream media just supports the status quo. The oligarchy, the ruling clssses, and the government that serves them. What best serves their needs. Making profit. At the expense of the public interest. Its true of the mainstream media, of social media. Almost everything we consume.

It's also true of pharma. They claim to have science on their side, yet they do not. Their claims are often bogus and do not stand up to scrutiny. They have been caught lying so many times during this pandemic. It is no wonder that the public has lost faith in them. I have heard is siad countless times that all medical professionals are on the side of XYZ. Yet that is just a repeated lie. Tens of thousands were against the shutdowns, against one-fits-all policies, against mandates, against mask use. But their views were censored, unheard. We do not live in a world of free speech. We live in an Orwellian nightmare.

The USA and its allies own 'the progaganda lane' - they accuse Russia and China of propaganda and take active steps to block their voices from the airwaves, yet the west does nothing about its own propaganda.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2773831]The issue in the media is self-selection. Its been pointed out that journalists and editors are selected bcos of their values and line of thought (lack of critical thinking / skepticism). When asked, they always say "I am not censored, I have the freedom to write and say what I choose". But they miss the point. They have been screened and chosen bcos their owners already have faith that they will not write or say anything out of line. And so the mainstream media just supports the status quo. The oligarchy, the ruling clssses, and the government that serves them. What best serves their needs. Making profit. At the expense of the public interest. Its true of the mainstream media, of social media. Almost everything we consume.

It's also true of pharma. They claim to have science on their side, yet they do not. Their claims are often bogus and do not stand up to scrutiny. They have been caught lying so many times during this pandemic. It is no wonder that the public has lost faith in them. I have heard is siad countless times that all medical professionals are on the side of XYZ. Yet that is just a repeated lie. Tens of thousands were against the shutdowns, against one-fits-all policies, against mandates, against mask use. But their views were censored, unheard. We do not live in a world of free speech. We live in an Orwellian nightmare.

The USA and its allies own 'the progaganda lane' - they accuse Russia and China of propaganda and take active steps to block their voices from the airwaves, yet the west does nothing about its own propaganda.[/QUOTE]Your rant is nothing more than the Repub "fake news" BS wrapped up a different way. Which "journalists and editors"? Only the ones from "mainstream media", correct? Because major mainstream media figures who have been sued have used the "nobody in their right mind would believe anything I have to say" defense? In case you forgot, Carlson's lawyers used this same cockamamie defense. Sure, there have been some mainstream media figures who have been caught in lies (Dan Rather comes to mind) but "the right" always blasts the "mainstream media" if they don't give full credence to every harebrained dumber-than-dogshit conspiracy theory drummed up by rightwingnut media. Like Chinese thermostats changed votes (or was it Italian Space lasers? Like Dominion was in league with Hugo Chavez (who has been dead almost as long as JFK). Like injecting disinfectant can cure COVID.

Pharma? Hey, there's a lot wrong with pharma. But riddle me this if you can. Pharma said that ivermectin was useless against COVID. Merck, the company who makes ivermectin, said it was useless. But why didn't Merck go along with the rightwingnuts and say "Hey, ivermectin works great against COVID and, BTW, we are increasing the price for ivermectin from $100 for 20 pills to $1000 for 20 pills. " After all, people who are dumb enough to send Donnie the Dumbass their hard-earned money would certainly be dumb enough to buy ivermectin at the new price. But the one, true immutable fact is that science deniers like you will always rant against everything in hindsight. Why haven't you taken science to task for their early-in-the-pandemic rule that people needed to wipe down their groceries. After all, they were wrong about that too.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2773837]Your rant is nothing more than the Repub "fake news" BS wrapped up a different way. Which "journalists and editors"? Only the ones from "mainstream media", correct?

Pharma? Hey, there's a lot wrong with pharma. But riddle me this if you can. Pharma said that ivermectin was useless against COVID. But the one, true immutable fact is that science deniers like you will always rant against everything in hindsight. Why haven't you taken science to task for their early-in-the-pandemic rule that people needed to wipe down their groceries. After all, they were wrong about that too.[/QUOTE]You really are one of the worst at tarring everyone w the same shlt brush. This has ZERO to do w Rep / Dem Yeah, I do realise you cannot contribute to any discuission unless it involves bashing Chump / Reps. I recommend you read Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky. BUt I doubt you will want to even think about cleaning your brush. This article paints a picture of how narrow the mainstream media window is in the USA (its a similar story elsewhere): [URL]https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2016/06/01/these-15-billionaires-own-americas-news-media-companies/?sh=1741b9db660a[/URL].

I am not a science denier. I know nothing of ivervectim, and I have been a COVID disident since the start of the pandemic. Review "Stupid Shit in Medellin' chat section for proof. Science has not guided policy in the pandemic. Profit, ignorance and fear have. Your views attest to that. That's why there were tens of thousands of medical professionals requesting the governments change direction.

Wiping groceries down? Why should I take a swipe at that low hanging fruit when there is so much more juicy items hanging above?

[QUOTE=JustTK;2773831]The issue in the media is self-selection. Its been pointed out that journalists and editors are selected bcos of their values and line of thought (lack of critical thinking / skepticism). When asked, they always say "I am not censored, I have the freedom to write and say what I choose". But they miss the point. They have been screened and chosen bcos their owners already have faith that they will not write or say anything out of line. And so the mainstream media just supports the status quo. The oligarchy, the ruling clssses, and the government that serves them. What best serves their needs. Making profit. At the expense of the public interest. Its true of the mainstream media, of social media. Almost everything we consume.

It's also true of pharma. They claim to have science on their side, yet they do not. Their claims are often bogus and do not stand up to scrutiny. They have been caught lying so many times during this pandemic. It is no wonder that the public has lost faith in them. I have heard is siad countless times that all medical professionals are on the side of XYZ. Yet that is just a repeated lie. Tens of thousands were against the shutdowns, against one-fits-all policies, against mandates, against mask use. But their views were censored, unheard. We do not live in a world of free speech. We live in an Orwellian nightmare.

The USA and its allies own 'the progaganda lane' - they accuse Russia and China of propaganda and take active steps to block their voices from the airwaves, yet the west does nothing about its own propaganda.[/QUOTE]As to the big picture, I may agree with the majority of your post. I wish my cable service hadn't dumped RT America. Before I reply, do you believe the oligarchy and ruling classes are specifically successful businessmen, investors and corporate CEO's?

As to COVID, I believe popular social-and-conventional media have led you astray. Doctor Radio is hosted by physicians who practice and teach at the NYU Langone medical center, and their guests are mostly prominent physicians from around the country. I don't rely on the main stream media for COVID information. I've read a few papers about COVID in medical journals and scanned many more. Here are I think the primary points where you and like minded people have been misled.

1. Getting the COVID vaccine puts you at higher risk for serious complications from myocarditis and blood clots and other ailments.

This is true, but getting COVID the disease is much more likely to cause serious cases of myocarditis and blood clotting. See

[URL]https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/08/22/covid-19-infection-poses-higher-risk-for-myocarditis-than-vaccines#[/URL] and

[URL]https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/postings/2021/07/blood-clotting-covid19.php#[/URL]

2. Many people have died from the COVID vaccine.

True again, depending on how you define "many. " Probably thousands of people have died as a result of taking the COVID vaccine in the USA. Most of them were old and frail and wouldn't have lasted long anyway. COVID the disease would have gotten many of them if the vaccine hadn't first. But over a million have died from the disease. It's a numbers game. I'm reasonably confident I'm over 100X better off getting the vaccine and boosters instead of building immunity primarily through COVID infections, and that's true of other older (say, over 50) and high risk individuals.

3. There weren't waves of deaths and hospitalizations from COVID in 2020 and 2021. COVID's not any worse than the flu. A lot of people died from causes other than COVID that were incorrectly called COVID.

False, and easy to debunk. Deaths in the USA rose from 2,854,838 in 2019 to 3,390,029 in 2020. Where did those extra 500,000 deaths come from if not from COVID? The CDC officially says 350,000 people died from COVID in 2020. I bet the number of people who died as a result of the disease was even higher.

[URL]https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/03/united-states-deaths-spiked-as-covid-19-continued.html[/URL]

4. Data from the UK, Israel and Italy, among other places, show you're more likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID if you've gotten the COVID vaccine

Absolutely untrue, although a cursory look at the numbers would indicate this is correct. This is explained by Simpson's Paradox. In the UK, Israel and Italy, a much higher percentage of older people were vaccinated than younger people. Older people are more likely to die from a case of COVID than younger people, by, say, two orders of magnitude. If you segment the data and look at age groups, for example, 80 to 90 year olds, 70 to 80 year olds, 60 to 70 year olds, 50 to 60 year olds, 40 to 50 year olds, etc., you'll find in every age group, hospitalization and death from COVID were much more likely among the unvaccinated.

https://www.ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2021/11/in-the-wrong-hands,-vaccination-statistics-can-prove-deadly-simpsons-paradox-shows-why

This actually will work in reverse in China. Right now unvaccinated people in China are dying at much, much higher rates than unvaccinated people, in small part because the elderly have been more reluctant to get the vaccines. And in large part because vaccination, particularly among people who have no immunity from previous infections, prevents hospitalization and deaths.

5. You aren't as likely to die or be hospitalized from Omicron, versus earlier variants.

Well, duh, yes. Everyone now has some immune protection from vaccines and previous infections with COVID. So in the USA and Europe, COVID infections are now milder. China would be a good test of the theory that Omicron is much less virulent than previous variants, except that you can't trust the numbers coming out of the country right now. Officially China is stating there were 62,592 symptomatic COVID cases over the first 20 days of December. But in closed door meetings they're putting the actual number of infections at 250 million (18% of the population), in just 20 days. Reportedly the hospitals are full to overflowing in China right now.

https://www.ft.com/content/1fb6044a-3050-44d8-b715-80c18ca5c9ab

I bet there's a blood bath right now in China, as many older people are not vaccinated.

6. Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are just as effective or more effective than Paxlovid in treating COVID. Paxlovid is being pushed over these alternatives because Pfizer makes a lot of money off it.

Based on the preponderance of the literature, there's not a lot of evidence that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are particularly effective, while Paxlovid definitely is. That said, if I didn't have access to Paxlovid and I were in a high risk group, I'd be taking ivermectin, and the rest of the Eastern Virginia Medical School protocol for symptomatic patients at home (see page 4 of link below), making sure I was taking a dose suitable for humans instead of horses.

[URL]https://www.fmda.org/COVID/Organizational-Efforts/EVMS%20Critical%20Care%20COVID-19%20Management%20Protocol.pdf[/URL]





A lot of this about the vaccine is academic by now. If you live in Europe or the Americas, you've gotten immunity through infections and/or the vaccines. So I don't think it should be a huge issue now. I'll continue getting boosters to maintain my immunity. If you're not, and if you're high risk, I'd just encourage you to look into Paxlovid as soon as you have symptoms and test positive. It could save you from hospitalization and death.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2773837]Your rant is nothing more than the Repub "fake news" BS wrapped up a different way. [/QUOTE]Without the Republican Trump Administration, I don't believe the highly effective mRNA vaccines would have gone into peoples arms so quickly. Operation Warp Speed was inspired, and I don't believe Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden would have pushed approvals through the FDA as quickly as Trump did.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2773682]Feliz Navidad.

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/12/24/carlson-cites-putin-threat-covid-sbf-and-inflation-among-favorite-lies-of-2022/[/URL][/QUOTE]Igualmente Marquis!

Well, he's extremely misleading when he says the vaccinated are more likely to be hospitalized or die. When you segregate the date by age groups, you see that people were much less likely to be hospitalized or die if they'd been vaccinated. Yeah, I'd characterize that as a lie. Tucker Carlson's the one who's telling it. See my link about Simpson's Paradox below. I'll repeat it here:

[URL]https://www.ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2021/11/in-the-wrong-hands,-vaccination-statistics-can-prove-deadly-simpsons-paradox-shows-why[/URL]

He's probably wrong about the Chinese military unleashing a deadly manufactured virus on the world.

I think he's probably right, that Putin didn't blow up the Gazprom pipeline.

He's absolutely right about Sam Bankman Fried. I love Cramer's comment on CNBC: "Is he the Jay Gould of our era or is he the JP Morgan of our era." Hilarious!

And finally I agree with him about Janet Yellen and "transitory" inflation. Inflation took off when Biden's American Rescue Plan was passed back in March, 2021, and the Fed at least appears to think it's going to go on for quite a while longer.

Thanks for the link, I enjoyed reading it.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773927]Igualmente Marquis!

Well, he's extremely misleading when he says the vaccinated are more likely to be hospitalized or die. When you segregate the date by age groups, you see that people were much less likely to be hospitalized or die if they'd been vaccinated. Yeah, I'd characterize that as a lie. Tucker Carlson's the one who's telling it. See my link about Simpson's Paradox below. I'll repeat it here:

[URL]https://www.ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2021/11/in-the-wrong-hands,-vaccination-statistics-can-prove-deadly-simpsons-paradox-shows-why[/URL]

He's probably wrong about the Chinese military unleashing a deadly manufactured virus on the world.

I think he's probably right, that Putin didn't blow up the Gazprom pipeline.

He's absolutely right about Sam Bankman Fried. I love Cramer's comment on CNBC: "Is he the Jay Gould of our era or is he the JP Morgan of our era." Hilarious!

And finally I agree with him about Janet Yellen and "transitory" inflation. Inflation took off when Biden's American Rescue Plan was passed back in March, 2021, and the Fed at least appears to think it's going to go on for quite a while longer.

Thanks for the link, I enjoyed reading it.[/QUOTE][URL]https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-bigger-madoff-enron[/URL]

[URL]https://www.ai-cio.com/news/madoff-victims-recovery-tops-80-losses/[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773886]As to the big picture, I may agree with the majority of your post. I wish my cable service hadn't dumped RT America. Before I reply, do you believe the oligarchy and ruling classes are specifically successful businessmen, investors and corporate CEO's?

As to COVID, I believe popular social-and-conventional media have led you astray. Doctor Radio is hosted by physicians who practice and teach at the NYU Langone medical center, and their guests are mostly prominent physicians from around the country. I don't rely on the main stream media for COVID information. I've read a few papers about COVID in medical journals and scanned many more. Here are I think the primary points where you and like minded people have been misled.

1. Getting the COVID vaccine puts you at higher risk for serious complications from myocarditis and blood clots and other ailments.

This is true, but getting COVID the disease is much more likely to cause serious cases of myocarditis and blood clotting. See

[URL]https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/08/22/covid-19-infection-poses-higher-risk-for-myocarditis-than-vaccines#[/URL] and

[URL]https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/postings/2021/07/blood-clotting-covid19.php#[/URL]

2. Many people have died from the COVID vaccine.

True again, depending on how you define "many. " Probably thousands of people have died as a result of taking the COVID vaccine in the USA. Most of them were old and frail and wouldn't have lasted long anyway. COVID the disease would have gotten many of them if the vaccine hadn't first. But over a million have died from the disease. It's a numbers game. I'm reasonably confident I'm over 100X better off getting the vaccine and boosters instead of building immunity primarily through COVID infections, and that's true of other older (say, over 50) and high risk individuals.

3. There weren't waves of deaths and hospitalizations from COVID in 2020 and 2021. COVID's not any worse than the flu. A lot of people died from causes other than COVID that were incorrectly called COVID.

False, and easy to debunk. Deaths in the USA rose from 2,854,838 in 2019 to 3,390,029 in 2020. Where did those extra 500,000 deaths come from if not from COVID? The CDC officially says 350,000 people died from COVID in 2020. I bet the number of people who died as a result of the disease was even higher.

[URL]https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/03/united-states-deaths-spiked-as-covid-19-continued.html[/URL]

4. Data from the UK, Israel and Italy, among other places, show you're more likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID if you've gotten the COVID vaccine

Absolutely untrue, although a cursory look at the numbers would indicate this is correct. This is explained by Simpson's Paradox. In the UK, Israel and Italy, a much higher percentage of older people were vaccinated than younger people. Older people are more likely to die from a case of COVID than younger people, by, say, two orders of magnitude. If you segment the data and look at age groups, for example, 80 to 90 year olds, 70 to 80 year olds, 60 to 70 year olds, 50 to 60 year olds, 40 to 50 year olds, etc., you'll find in every age group, hospitalization and death from COVID were much more likely among the unvaccinated.

https://www.ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2021/11/in-the-wrong-hands,-vaccination-statistics-can-prove-deadly-simpsons-paradox-shows-why

This actually will work in reverse in China. Right now unvaccinated people in China are dying at much, much higher rates than unvaccinated people, in small part because the elderly have been more reluctant to get the vaccines. And in large part because vaccination, particularly among people who have no immunity from previous infections, prevents hospitalization and deaths.

5. You aren't as likely to die or be hospitalized from Omicron, versus earlier variants.

Well, duh, yes. Everyone now has some immune protection from vaccines and previous infections with COVID. So in the USA and Europe, COVID infections are now milder. China would be a good test of the theory that Omicron is much less virulent than previous variants, except that you can't trust the numbers coming out of the country right now. Officially China is stating there were 62,592 symptomatic COVID cases over the first 20 days of December. But in closed door meetings they're putting the actual number of infections at 250 million (18% of the population), in just 20 days. Reportedly the hospitals are full to overflowing in China right now.

https://www.ft.com/content/1fb6044a-3050-44d8-b715-80c18ca5c9ab

I bet there's a blood bath right now in China, as many older people are not vaccinated.

6. Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are just as effective or more effective than Paxlovid in treating COVID. Paxlovid is being pushed over these alternatives because Pfizer makes a lot of money off it.

Based on the preponderance of the literature, there's not a lot of evidence that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are particularly effective, while Paxlovid definitely is. That said, if I didn't have access to Paxlovid and I were in a high risk group, I'd be taking ivermectin, and the rest of the Eastern Virginia Medical School protocol for symptomatic patients at home (see page 4 of link below), making sure I was taking a dose suitable for humans instead of horses.

[URL]https://www.fmda.org/COVID/Organizational-Efforts/EVMS%20Critical%20Care%20COVID-19%20Management%20Protocol.pdf[/URL]





A lot of this about the vaccine is academic by now. If you live in Europe or the Americas, you've gotten immunity through infections and/or the vaccines. So I don't think it should be a huge issue now. I'll continue getting boosters to maintain my immunity. If you're not, and if you're high risk, I'd just encourage you to look into Paxlovid as soon as you have symptoms and test positive. It could save you from hospitalization and death.[/QUOTE]Just go to RTnews online, if you have any access issues use Bing or download TOR.

[URL]https://www.rt.com/[/URL]

[URL]https://sputniknews.com/[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773892]Without the Republican Trump Administration, I don't believe the highly effective mRNA vaccines would have gone into peoples arms so quickly. Operation Warp Speed was inspired, and I don't believe Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden would have pushed approvals through the FDA as quickly as Trump did.[/QUOTE]Trump's rebranding Obama's Rapid Vaccine programs from almost 10 years earlier as "his" Operation Warp Speed was most certainly inspired by the urgent [I]need[/I] for worldwide distribution of vaccines ASAP due to Trump's own admitted creation of Trump's Pandemic in the first place.

By Trump's own admission, Trump's Pandemic would have been prevented and the world would not have had these problems if only we had gotten a [I]2 month[/I] heads up about the initial outbreak in China.

Unfortunately, and against all expert advice and dire warnings for him not to do something so stupid and dangerous, Trump made the disastrous decision to defund the CDC and removed the very officials whose job it was to do exactly that [I]5 months before the initial outbreak.[/I].

And, for sure, neither Hillary Clinton nor Joe Biden nor Barack Obama nor any other Dem would have done something as stupid and dangerous as that and produced a Pandemic requiring such rapid vaccine development.

But virtually every Repub would have and would happily do so again.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2773682]Feliz Navidad.

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/12/24/carlson-cites-putin-threat-covid-sbf-and-inflation-among-favorite-lies-of-2022/[/URL][/QUOTE]And a Happy New Year!

[B]2022 Misinformer of the Year: Tucker Carlson[/B]

[URL]https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/misinformer-year-tucker-carlson[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773886]As to the big picture, I may agree with the majority of your post. I wish my cable service hadn't dumped RT America. Before I reply, do you believe the oligarchy and ruling classes are specifically successful businessmen, investors and corporate CEO's?

As to COVID, I believe popular social-and-conventional media have led you astray.

1. Getting the COVID vaccine puts you at higher risk for serious complications from myocarditis and blood clots and other ailments.

2. Many people have died from the COVID vaccine.

3. There weren't waves of deaths and hospitalizations from COVID in 2020 and 2021. COVID's not any worse than the flu. A lot of people died from causes other than COVID that were incorrectly called COVID.

4. Data from the UK, Israel and Italy, among other places, show you're more likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID if you've gotten the COVID vaccine

6. Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are just as effective or more effective than Paxlovid in treating COVID. Paxlovid is being pushed over these alternatives because Pfizer makes a lot of money off it.

If you live in Europe or the Americas, you've gotten immunity through infections and/or the vaccines. So I don't think it should be a huge issue now. If you're not, and if you're high risk, I'd just encourage you to look into Paxlovid.[/QUOTE]Firstly, happy festive season little fella. Your one of the most fun and interesting to chat to here. A breath of fresh air in the tide of the propagandised.

Who are the oligarchs? Its those that have the political influence. Most often its the big corporates that buy political policy. Big corporates are legally obliged to be amoral bcos they must make profit above all else. That is primarily how we have arrived at this immoral global mess. Big decisions made by amoral institutions. Occassionally a person can have a big enough stake that they too can an oligrach.

COVID. Its not me that is being misled Tiny. I don't hold any of those positions listed above. My position was always it is a disease of the elderly and infirm. That was clear at the outset and the GBD was based on targetted response. There was no need to involve and ruin the lives of billions of other people.

I haven't been vaxd for 2 reasons:

1. I don't think it is necessary. I am not at risk. One of the biggest lies told was that the vax reduces transmission. We were told that we must get vaxd for the benefit of everyone. LIE.

2. I am a vegan and I will not be forced in to consuming goods that were tested on tortured sentient beings. My life is not worth more than that of any other sentient being. It is pure evil.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773892]Without the Republican Trump Administration, I don't believe the highly effective mRNA vaccines would have gone into peoples arms so quickly. Operation Warp Speed was inspired, and I don't believe Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden would have pushed approvals through the FDA as quickly as Trump did.[/QUOTE]Well, they wouldn't have named it Operation Dork Speed, that's for sure.

And if you believe that HRC or JRB would have "slow walked" vaccine approval because they wanted more Americans to die, you must have purchased some of Donnie the Dumbass' $99 "trading cards."

What we do know is that Biden would not have poo-poo'ed COVID like Donnie the Dumbass did nor would he have fucked up the US response to COVID like Donnie the Dumbass did.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2773846]You really are one of the worst at tarring everyone w the same shlt brush. This has ZERO to do w Rep / Dem Yeah, I do realise you cannot contribute to any discuission unless it involves bashing Chump / Reps. I recommend you read Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky. BUt I doubt you will want to even think about cleaning your brush. This article paints a picture of how narrow the mainstream media window is in the USA (its a similar story elsewhere): [URL]https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2016/06/01/these-15-billionaires-own-americas-news-media-companies/?sh=1741b9db660a[/URL].

I am not a science denier. I know nothing of ivervectim, and I have been a COVID disident since the start of the pandemic. Review "Stupid Shit in Medellin' chat section for proof. Science has not guided policy in the pandemic. Profit, ignorance and fear have. Your views attest to that. That's why there were tens of thousands of medical professionals requesting the governments change direction.

Wiping groceries down? Why should I take a swipe at that low hanging fruit when there is so much more juicy items hanging above?[/QUOTE]So what if 15 billionaires own a lot of American media? Your original point was that mainstream media media can't be trusted to report "facts" because of their bias. To support this you provided a link to which billionaires own various mainstream media. If you believe that Bezos knows the thoughts of every reporter at WAPO, you are delusional. If you think that Buffett knows the thoughts of every reporter at every newspaper (or even every editor) you are equally delusional. Yes, there is some bias because news articles are written by humans and humans are biased. But to suggest that these biases are why mainstream media didn't report on Chinese thermostats causing voting machines to change votes is ludicrous. Mainstream media didn't report on this issue because the issue itself was dumber-than-dogshit.

You really should look at videos or read articles suggesting the wiping down of groceries. They are all over the internet. Why don't you blast "science" for their suggestion of wiping down groceries? After all, the scientists were wrong about that. Here's an example. [URL]https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/05/21/seeking-advice-on-how-to-stay-safe-and-prevent-the-spread-of-covid-19-ask-microbiology-expert-dr-golemi-kotra-on-friday-at-12-pm-et.html[/URL].

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2774139]Well, they wouldn't have named it Operation Dork Speed, that's for sure.

And if you believe that HRC or JRB would have "slow walked" vaccine approval because they wanted more Americans to die, you must have purchased some of Donnie the Dumbass' $99 "trading cards."

What we do know is that Biden would not have poo-poo'ed COVID like Donnie the Dumbass did nor would he have fucked up the US response to COVID like Donnie the Dumbass did.[/QUOTE]Yeah I wish Trump had used the bully pulpit to promote N95 and KN95 masks. And I wish he hadn't sponsored super spreader events. But I stand by what I said. Trump figured if he could get the vaccine in peoples' arms before November 3, it would help him win the election. And he probably had a much higher tolerance for risk than Biden or Clinton would have had in pursuit of that goal. He was taking prophylactic hydroxychloroquine! Hell, I wouldn't take that shit if I were living in a malaria infested jungle in Africa (as long as I had doxycycline.). Anyway it's good that the Trump administration pushed the vaccine as hard as it did. That saved tens of thousands of lives, maybe more.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2774146] To support this you provided a link to which billionaires own various mainstream media. If you believe that Bezos knows the thoughts of every reporter at WAPO, you are delusional. If you think that Buffett knows the thoughts of every reporter at every newspaper (or even every editor) you are equally delusional.

[/QUOTE]If you believe that's how media bias works, your not worth corresponding with. I gave you a link to a book. I would suggest you read it but I know you won't bcos you don't want anything to interfere with your wilful ignorance. But you could easily find a critique: [URL]https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-critique-of-edward-herman-and-noam-chomskys-manufacturingconsent-the-political-economy-of-mass-media-2168-9717-1000176.php?aid=84135[/URL].

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774093]And a Happy New Year!

[B]2022 Misinformer of the Year: Tucker Carlson[/B]

[URL]https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/misinformer-year-tucker-carlson[/URL][/QUOTE]Medialiars aka David Brock.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2774106]Firstly, happy festive season little fella. Your one of the most fun and interesting to chat to here. A breath of fresh air in the tide of the propagandised.

Who are the oligarchs? Its those that have the political influence. Most often its the big corporates that buy political policy. Big corporates are legally obliged to be amoral bcos they must make profit above all else. That is primarily how we have arrived at this immoral global mess. Big decisions made by amoral institutions. Occassionally a person can have a big enough stake that they too can an oligrach.

COVID. Its not me that is being misled Tiny. I don't hold any of those positions listed above. My position was always it is a disease of the elderly and infirm. That was clear at the outset and the GBD was based on targetted response. There was no need to involve and ruin the lives of billions of other people.

I haven't been vaxd for 2 reasons:

1. I don't think it is necessary. I am not at risk. One of the biggest lies told was that the vax reduces transmission. We were told that we must get vaxd for the benefit of everyone. LIE.

2. I am a vegan and I will not be forced in to consuming goods that were tested on tortured sentient beings. My life is not worth more than that of any other sentient being. It is pure evil.[/QUOTE]Well, Merry Christmas to one of my favorite atheists, in cyber space for sure!

I place the blame on the politicians and the people, not the corporates. There's nothing wrong with the pursuit of profit, as long as there's competition, so that prices are low and quality is high. In Pharma, the industry we've been discussing, that's not the case. The politicians should step in and fix that, but they won't.

And who's responsible for electing the politicians? The people. There are candidates like Jeff Flake, Justin Amash and Gary Johnson, who will do and vote for what makes sense. (I lean libertarian and right of center on economic issues so that's why I'm using them as examples. I'm sure there are those out there on the left as well who vote their conscience.) We don't elect those types though.

Same with the media. We've become so divided. People don't want to hear both sides of an issue. To the extent that the corporates are pulling the strings of journalists and the like, it's to appeal to their audiences so they can charge more for advertising. Tucker Carlson was once on MSNBC, but he didn't last, because that's not what their viewership wanted to see. Similarly if Alexandria Ocasio Cortez retired, Fox News wouldn't be offering her a job. You've got half of America watching Fox News and the other half watching left-of-center news, and never shall the twain meet.

We the people get what we want and deserve.

As to COVID, again now that everyone has some immunity from infection and/or vaccination, I think we're arguing about the past. I read a quote from an immunologist/public health expert today who said the probability of the average person in the USA dying from COVID if he contracts it is now about 1 out of 2,000, about the same as the flu. He does however think COVID is a bigger threat because it's more contagious, and there's long COVID.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying why you believe what you do. It makes sense.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774266]
I place the blame on the politicians and the people, not the corporates. There's nothing wrong with the pursuit of profit, as long as there's competition, so that prices are low and quality is high. In Pharma, the industry we've been discussing, that's not the case.

[/QUOTE]Tiny, have I ever given you my fave radioactive isotope analogy? Surely I must have, I use it often enough. Hehe. Pure lassez faire capitlaism is like one of the isotupes of a radioactive element that can only exist in space or in theory (in the table of elements and isotopes) - bcos whenever it males contact with the atmosphere on Earth, it decays in to something else instantly. Likewise, free markets immediately dissolve in to winners and losers, and as soon as one company / business starts to take the upperhand, they start to use their extra gains to exert undue influence on the market. Whether its advertising, or politictal favour, eventually law, and then war. They crush the competition and we end up where we are. Oligrachy and monopoly. A small group of winners and and ever growing nunmber of the exploited. Its called the End times of capitalism.

I trust you can see it. Hopefully given time you will appreciate its truth.

And a Happy New Year!

2022 Misinformer of the Year: Tucker Carlson.

[URL]https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/misinformer-year-tucker-carlson[/URL]

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/news/worst-media-misses-of-2022/[/URL]

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2774204]Medialiars aka David Brock.[/QUOTE]In order to "prove" what a great guy Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, your Breitbart link simply included a transcript from Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson's own misinformation show with zero links to substantiate his opinions.

In order to prove what a liar Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, my Media Matters link is chock full of hyper links citing the differences between the blithering misinformation spouted by Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson and the facts.

Media Matters is about calling out the media for lies and misinformation regardless of perceived political affiliation. MSNBC's Chris Matthews has earned their Misinformer of the Year Award in the past.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2774275]Tiny, have I ever given you my fave radioactive isotope analogy? Surely I must have, I use it often enough. Hehe. Pure lassez faire capitlaism is like one of the isotupes of a radioactive element that can only exist in space or in theory (in the table of elements and isotopes) - bcos whenever it males contact with the atmosphere on Earth, it decays in to something else instantly. Likewise, free markets immediately dissolve in to winners and losers, and as soon as one company / business starts to take the upperhand, they start to use their extra gains to exert undue influence on the market. Whether its advertising, or politictal favour, eventually law, and then war. They crush the competition and we end up where we are. Oligrachy and monopoly. A small group of winners and and ever growing nunmber of the exploited. Its called the End times of capitalism.

I trust you can see it. Hopefully given time you will appreciate its truth.[/QUOTE]Hi JustTK,

I'm not a fan of government policies that allow the creation of monopolies that disadvantage consumers, which is I think what you're getting at with your criticism of laissez faire capitalism. And I'm certainly not a fan of crony capitalism. I could point to a number of countries in the developing world that have allowed crony capitalism to flourish, to the benefit of local elites, being politicians and well connected businessmen. And the working man has suffered, by paying higher prices for lower quality goods and poor service.

For the most part however, that's not the case in the USA. Health care is an exception, and the politicians should go in and bust some heads to set it right. Protectionism by the Trump and Biden administrations through tariffs and other means (e.g. the "made in America" requirements in Biden's Inflation Reduction Act) is another exception.

I'm not sure what to think about some of the big tech companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Yes, they're close to monopolies, but I'm not sure they disadvantage consumers. Their existence is definitely a huge plus for the USA and the world, although I'm sure they engage in some anticompetitive practices that should be done away with.

Otherwise, the USA, largely as a result of thriving free market capitalism, is prosperous and a consumer's paradise. Companies compete vigorously. Look at retail, where you have Walmart, Costco, Target, Amazon, etc. Builders, landlords, supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, hardware stores, car dealerships, you name it --- there are lots of them in every city, and the competition keeps prices low and quality high.

Over the last hundred years, capitalism, aided by globalism and improvements in technology, has pulled billions out of poverty. And capitalism has pushed out communism and socialism in most of the world, because it works better.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773927]Igualmente Marquis!

Well, he's extremely misleading when he says the vaccinated are more likely to be hospitalized or die. When you segregate the date by age groups, you see that people were much less likely to be hospitalized or die if they'd been vaccinated. Yeah, I'd characterize that as a lie. Tucker Carlson's the one who's telling it. See my link about Simpson's Paradox below. I'll repeat it here:

[URL]https://www.ntu.ac.uk/about-us/news/news-articles/2021/11/in-the-wrong-hands,-vaccination-statistics-can-prove-deadly-simpsons-paradox-shows-why[/URL]

He's probably wrong about the Chinese military unleashing a deadly manufactured virus on the world.

I think he's probably right, that Putin didn't blow up the Gazprom pipeline.

He's absolutely right about Sam Bankman Fried. I love Cramer's comment on CNBC: "Is he the Jay Gould of our era or is he the JP Morgan of our era." Hilarious!

And finally I agree with him about Janet Yellen and "transitory" inflation. Inflation took off when Biden's American Rescue Plan was passed back in March, 2021, and the Fed at least appears to think it's going to go on for quite a while longer.

Thanks for the link, I enjoyed reading it.[/QUOTE]The inevitable and unavoidable inflation triggered by a blessed recovery from a 2-year worldwide economic paralysis due to Trump's Pandemic and its massive jobs and global supply-chain destruction would naturally need to begin with some kind of effective economic recovery legislation. It wouldn't be about Thoughts and Prayers.

Thank you for reminding us that this great, historic recovery began legislatively with Biden's American Rescue Plan.

I might argue it began spiritually soon after the November 2020 Presidential Election results were announced. But the necessary legislation that really got the recovery up and running for real was definitely Biden's.

And the good news about that inevitable but transitory inflation that a recovery from this particularly deep and virulent Great Repub Economic Disaster would trigger is that the great strides produced by Biden's legislation in terms of jobs creation, wage growth, consumer spending, etc, is not consistent in the least with a recessionary economy and not likely to be without the Fed artificially inducing some elements of it.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2774005][URL]https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-bigger-madoff-enron[/URL]

[URL]https://www.ai-cio.com/news/madoff-victims-recovery-tops-80-losses/[/URL][/QUOTE]I actually think SBF's victims will get something back, maybe 10 or 20 cents on the dollar. That's a wild guess. But yes, it will be a lot less than what the people Bernie Madoff conned have received so far.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774034]Trump's rebranding Obama's Rapid Vaccine programs from almost 10 years earlier as "his" Operation Warp Speed was most certainly inspired by the urgent [I]need[/I] for worldwide distribution of vaccines ASAP due to Trump's own admitted creation of Trump's Pandemic in the first place.

By Trump's own admission, Trump's Pandemic would have been prevented and the world would not have had these problems if only we had gotten a [I]2 month[/I] heads up about the initial outbreak in China.

Unfortunately, and against all expert advice and dire warnings for him not to do something so stupid and dangerous, Trump made the disastrous decision to defund the CDC and removed the very officials whose job it was to do exactly that [I]5 months before the initial outbreak.[/I].

And, for sure, neither Hillary Clinton nor Joe Biden nor Barack Obama nor any other Dem would have done something as stupid and dangerous as that and produced a Pandemic requiring such rapid vaccine development.

But virtually every Repub would have and would happily do so again.[/QUOTE]Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield and others gave the Trump administration a lot of credit for Operation Warp Speed, after Trump left office.

I don't believe there are many (any?) knowledgeable public health experts who would agree with your contention that the pandemic would have been prevented if not for Trump's missteps.

During the very early stage pandemic, the CCP was lying to the local government officials and the people in Wuhan, and persecuting doctors who were attempting to warn the public. What makes you think they would have done jack to allow the CDC to better understand what was going on? There were flights from Wuhan to Europe and the USA all the way up until January 23. By that time COVID was in Europe and there was no way to stop it from developing into a pandemic.

Biden criticized Trump for xenophobia the day after Trump instituted a ban on travel from China.

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yes-biden-called-trumps-travel-restrictions-xenophobic/[/URL]

Trump's a liar, everybody knows that. And a Chinaphobe. If he did indeed say that there would have been no pandemic if we'd had 2 months more notice, why would you believe him?

[QUOTE=JustTK;2774181]If you believe that's how media bias works, your not worth corresponding with. I gave you a link to a book. I would suggest you read it but I know you won't bcos you don't want anything to interfere with your wilful ignorance. But you could easily find a critique: [URL]https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-critique-of-edward-herman-and-noam-chomskys-manufacturingconsent-the-political-economy-of-mass-media-2168-9717-1000176.php?aid=84135[/URL].[/QUOTE]Hey, you were the guy who provided the link I mentioned. I simply looked at it and commented. If you don't want comments on links you provide [B]don't provide them[/B].

But back to Chomsky. His central thought is: "The behaviour of journalists in the mainstream media is exactly what one would expect, on average, given the power structure of the institutions in which they are employed, and it is predictable in the same sense and for the same reasons that the behaviour of the president of General Motors is predictable. In order to succeed—in order to be hired and promoted—media personnel must avoid questioning the interests of the corporations they work for or the interests of the elite minority who run those corporations. Because journalists naturally do not wish to think of themselves as mercenaries (no one does), they engage in what amounts to a form of self-deception. They typically think of themselves as stalwart defenders of the truth (as suggested by the slogan of the New York Times, "All the news that's fit to print" but when state or corporate interests are at stake they act otherwise, in crucially important ways. In short, very few of them are willing or even able to live up to their responsibility as intellectuals to bring the truth about matters of human significance to an audience that can do something about them."

What is interesting about this is that it mentions "mainstream media" and ignores all rightwingnut media, blogs and all of the rest of the drivel coming from the right. Possibly he ignores the rest because when he published [I]"Manufacturing Consent"[/I] in 1988, rightwingnut media didn't exist in its current form. I wonder if he would take them to task as well. But his central thought is still mainstream media is "fake news."

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774341]Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield and others gave the Trump administration a lot of credit for Operation Warp Speed, after Trump left office.

I don't believe there are many (any?) knowledgeable public health experts who would agree with your contention that the pandemic would have been prevented if not for Trump's missteps.

During the very early stage pandemic, the CCP was lying to the local government officials and the people in Wuhan, and persecuting doctors who were attempting to warn the public. What makes you think they would have done jack to allow the CDC to better understand what was going on? There were flights from Wuhan to Europe and the USA all the way up until January 23. By that time COVID was in Europe and there was no way to stop it from developing into a pandemic.

Biden criticized Trump for xenophobia the day after Trump instituted a ban on travel from China.

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yes-biden-called-trumps-travel-restrictions-xenophobic/[/URL]

Trump's a liar, everybody knows that. And a Chinaphobe. If he did indeed say that there would have been no pandemic if we'd had 2 months more notice, why would you believe him?[/QUOTE]He didn't say that the pandemic would have been prevented. What he said was that Donnie the Dumbass said it. [URL]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-china-trump-idUSKCN229310[/URL] and [URL]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/trump-says-china-could-have-stopped-covid-19-and-suggests-us-will-seek-damages[/URL] among other sources.

And, yes, Biden criticized Donnie the Dumbass' "ban" [B]because it was xenophobic[/B]. Additionally, Donnie called it a "ban" but it wasn't. It was restrictions only and it didn't restrict everybody. Just Chinese nationals from mainland China. You could still come into the US if you were from Taiwan because everybody knows that Taiwanese have no relatives living in Wuhan, don't know anybody living in Wuhan and certainly have never had a visitor from the mainland who had ever come in contact with anybody who could have had COVID (note: sarcasm alert).

And yes, Donnie did end the program that was supposed to detect things like SARS-CoV-2. [URL]https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection[/URL] Of note, ""Coronaviruses were jumping easily across species lines and were ones to watch for epidemics and pandemics," she said.

The program also trained nearly 7,000 people across medical and agricultural sectors in 30 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to help them detect deadly new viruses on their own. [B]One of those labs was the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the Chinese lab that quickly identified SARS-CoV-2[/B], Mazet said. " Would the CDC folks in China have detected SARS-CoV-2 early? Who knows. But the simple fact that Donnie the Dumbass dismantled the program before they could have detected anything was, well, stupid.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2774472]He didn't say that the pandemic would have been prevented. What he said was that Donnie the Dumbass said it. [URL]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-china-trump-idUSKCN229310[/URL] and [URL]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/trump-says-china-could-have-stopped-covid-19-and-suggests-us-will-seek-damages[/URL] among other sources.

And, yes, Biden criticized Donnie the Dumbass' "ban" [B]because it was xenophobic[/B]. Additionally, Donnie called it a "ban" but it wasn't. It was restrictions only and it didn't restrict everybody. Just Chinese nationals from mainland China. You could still come into the US if you were from Taiwan because everybody knows that Taiwanese have no relatives living in Wuhan, don't know anybody living in Wuhan and certainly have never had a visitor from the mainland who had ever come in contact with anybody who could have had COVID (note: sarcasm alert).

And yes, Donnie did end the program that was supposed to detect things like SARS-CoV-2. [URL]https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection[/URL] Of note, ""Coronaviruses were jumping easily across species lines and were ones to watch for epidemics and pandemics," she said.

The program also trained nearly 7,000 people across medical and agricultural sectors in 30 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to help them detect deadly new viruses on their own. [B]One of those labs was the Wuhan Institute of Virology the Chinese lab that quickly identified SARS-CoV-2[/B], Mazet said. " Would the CDC folks in China have detected SARS-CoV-2 early? Who knows. But the simple fact that Donnie the Dumbass dismantled the program before they could have detected anything was, well, stupid.[/QUOTE]Hey, while I'm not a fan of the federal government in general, I agree that pandemic preparedness should be a focus of our federal government. George W. Bush and Bill Gates had it right. I'm not going to defend the Trump Administration for reducing funding for that. I will note that the real Dumb Ass behind a lot of the changes was John Bolton, who Trump did eventually fire.

As to Tooms' belief that COVID was "Trump's Pandemic", that Trump was responsible for it, it's laughable. Yes, 350,000 Americans died in 2020 from COVID, before a vaccine was available. Trump should have used the bully pulpit to encourage people to use N95 and KN95 masks and to avoid super spreader events (like his indoor campaign rally.) But a lot of people died in many other countries as well. When Biden took over we had the vaccine. And since then another 700,000 Americans have died from COVID. Fewer would be dead if the Biden administration had used its bully pulpit to persuade more Americans to get vaccinated and get Paxlovid.

Biden's a believer in the vaccine, masks and testing. But boy was he ineffective when it came to implementation. Only about 36% of Americans over 65 have received the bivalent booster. There should have been masks and test kits in every American's Christmas stocking a year ago, when Omicron kicked off. He was a day late and a dollar short.

You'll undoubtedly reply that Republicans were the ones who were less likely to get vaccinated and wear masks. Well, if the current dumb ass in the White House (I'd argue the current and last three occupants were all dumb asses) were a little more bipartisan instead of viewing his job as our country's Divider In Chief, maybe some Republicans would have been more receptive.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774333]The inevitable and unavoidable inflation triggered by a blessed recovery from a 2-year worldwide economic paralysis due to Trump's Pandemic and its massive jobs and global supply-chain destruction would naturally need to begin with some kind of effective economic recovery legislation. It wouldn't be about Thoughts and Prayers.

Thank you for reminding us that this great, historic recovery began legislatively with Biden's American Rescue Plan.

I might argue it began spiritually soon after the November 2020 Presidential Election results were announced. But the necessary legislation that really got the recovery up and running for real was definitely Biden's.

And the good news about that inevitable but transitory inflation that a recovery from this particularly deep and virulent Great Repub Economic Disaster would trigger is that the great strides produced by Biden's legislation in terms of jobs creation, wage growth, consumer spending, etc, is not consistent in the least with a recessionary economy and not likely to be without the Fed artificially inducing some elements of it.[/QUOTE]Carry on with the propaganda. Most nonpartisan economists who follow this believe the American Rescue Plan, which received "0" Republican votes, worsened inflation, and we would have been better off without it. You can put some Democrat economists in that camp too, like Larry Summers and Jason Furman.

[B]Bidens American Rescue Plan worsened inflation. The question is how much.[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/23036340/biden-american-rescue-plan-inflation[/URL]

Inflation in goods and services has risen faster than wages since the American Rescue Plan was passed. The workingman slips farther and farther behind.

It's going to be interesting how you explain the Biden Recession of 2023, given that your analysis of the American economy only considers one variable, which political party the President belongs to.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2774459]

What is interesting about this is that it mentions "mainstream media" and ignores all rightwingnut media, blogs and all of the rest of the drivel coming from the right. [/QUOTE]I don't really understand what you mean. Mainstream media means all channels of media that dominate our airwaves due to heavy corporate sponsorship. That includes all the large right wing nutjob news channels such as MSNBC, CNN, Fox, Bloomberg. All of them. The book has been update since its initial publication.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774525]Carry on with the propaganda. Most nonpartisan economists who follow this believe the American Rescue Plan, which received "0" Republican votes, worsened inflation, and we would have been better off without it. You can put some Democrat economists in that camp too, like Larry Summers and Jason Furman.

[B]Bidens American Rescue Plan worsened inflation. The question is how much.[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/23036340/biden-american-rescue-plan-inflation[/URL]

Inflation in goods and services has risen faster than wages since the American Rescue Plan was passed. The workingman slips farther and farther behind.

It's going to be interesting how you explain the Biden Recession of 2023, given that your analysis of the American economy only considers one variable, which political party the President belongs to.[/QUOTE]The "propanganda" is yours as you cherrypicked your own source. It's amazing what one so often finds when they follow the links planted below the biased monger forum analysis. Here's one embedded link within where the case is made that the stimulus plan saved the US economy.

[URL]https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/02/inflation-rate-biden-stimulus-blamed/9578452002/?gnt-cfr=1[/URL]

And from your source it says:

"Some economists with lower-end estimates still argue that it's a mistake to put too much blame on the American Rescue Plan, which in their view was just a minor contributor to inflation. The White House shares this view. A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were other potential explanations for differing core inflation rates in the US and Europe, and that arguments blaming Biden's stimulus were merely correlational.

The US also stands out from other countries in a more favorable way: It had a quicker and stronger economic recovery in 2021. That indeed seems to be partly because of the Biden stimulus spending."

Underline the last point. Therefore it's complicated, and personal opinions are involved, as there's no way to know with certainty what all would have happened had we done much less or nothing. One point is very clear though, inflation has been a worldwide phenomenon, and all the posturing on that front lost the Repubs another seat in the senate while realizing an embarrassing pink trickle in the house.

Anyway I'm glad you guys still have so much time on your hands to try and decipher how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I just got back from Colombia where I rang the bells of many beautiful, curvaceous 20 somethings. Life is grand and I will return soon. Wink.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URAqnM1PP5E[/URL]

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2774561]The "propanganda" is yours as you cherrypicked your own source. It's amazing what one so often finds when they follow the links planted below the biased monger forum analysis. Here's one embedded link within where the case is made that the stimulus plan saved the US economy.

[URL]https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/02/inflation-rate-biden-stimulus-blamed/9578452002/?gnt-cfr=1[/URL]

And from your source it says:

"Some economists with lower-end estimates still argue that it's a mistake to put too much blame on the American Rescue Plan, which in their view was just a minor contributor to inflation. The White House shares this view. A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were other potential explanations for differing core inflation rates in the US and Europe, and that arguments blaming Biden's stimulus were merely correlational.

The US also stands out from other countries in a more favorable way: It had a quicker and stronger economic recovery in 2021. That indeed seems to be partly because of the Biden stimulus spending."

Underline the last point. Therefore it's complicated, and personal opinions are involved, as there's no way to know with certainty what all would have happened had we done much less or nothing. One point is very clear though, inflation has been a worldwide phenomenon, and all the posturing on that front lost the Repubs another seat in the senate while realizing an embarrassing pink trickle in the house.

Anyway I'm glad you guys still have so much time on your hands to try and decipher how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I just got back from Colombia where I rang the bells of many beautiful, curvaceous 20 somethings. Life is grand and I will return soon. Wink.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URAqnM1PP5E[/URL][/QUOTE]Inflation was not a worldwide phenomenon in the first half of 2021. At 6/30/2021, about 4 months after the American Rescue Plan was passed, YoY CPI inflation was under 2% in the Euro area and China and negative in Japan. It was 5.4% in the USA. During the same YoY period, average hourly earnings in the USA were only up 3.95%. Despite 12.5% growth in GDP over that 12 month period, the workingman's inflation adjusted wages fell by 1.5%. And he hasn't regained that since.

YOU'RE the one who's cherry picking. What do you think the White House is going to say? We were wrong? Larry Summers (the most prominent Democrat economist) was right? I don't subscribe to USA Today, so can't read your link. But I'd bet my bottom dollar that anyone quoted in it who actually said the American Rescue Plan saved the economy is highly biased.

All I did was provide a link. I didn't quote any of the text of the article, except the headline. Vox would be a bizarre place for me to go cherry picking. It's considered left wing ([URL]https://www.influencewatch.org/for-profit/vox/[/URL]) and pro Biden. I picked that source because no one could reasonably accuse me of cherry picking it. Vox was founded by Ezra Klein for goodness sake.

The article in its totality, including the charts and comments by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Jason Furman (Obama's chief economic advisor), and Wendy Edelberg (economist at left leaning Brookings Institution), will not leave you with a favorable view of the American Rescue Plan.

Congrats on your Colombian conquests. You probably spent more time traveling there than I spent writing here over the last month.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774525]Carry on with the propaganda. Most nonpartisan economists who follow this believe the American Rescue Plan, which received "0" Republican votes, worsened inflation, and we would have been better off without it. You can put some Democrat economists in that camp too, like Larry Summers and Jason Furman.

[B]Bidens American Rescue Plan worsened inflation. The question is how much.[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/23036340/biden-american-rescue-plan-inflation[/URL]

Inflation in goods and services has risen faster than wages since the American Rescue Plan was passed. The workingman slips farther and farther behind.

It's going to be interesting how you explain the Biden Recession of 2023, given that your analysis of the American economy only considers one variable, which political party the President belongs to.[/QUOTE]I was supposed to be explaining The Great Biden Recession that many Wingers here and in the media were screetching that we were already IN back in early 2021.

Never happened.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774341]Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield and others gave the Trump administration a lot of credit for Operation Warp Speed, after Trump left office.

I don't believe there are many (any?) knowledgeable public health experts who would agree with your contention that the pandemic would have been prevented if not for Trump's missteps.

During the very early stage pandemic, the CCP was lying to the local government officials and the people in Wuhan, and persecuting doctors who were attempting to warn the public. What makes you think they would have done jack to allow the CDC to better understand what was going on? There were flights from Wuhan to Europe and the USA all the way up until January 23. By that time COVID was in Europe and there was no way to stop it from developing into a pandemic.

Biden criticized Trump for xenophobia the day after Trump instituted a ban on travel from China.

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yes-biden-called-trumps-travel-restrictions-xenophobic/[/URL]

Trump's a liar, everybody knows that. And a Chinaphobe. If he did indeed say that there would have been no pandemic if we'd had 2 months more notice, why would you believe him?[/QUOTE]Trump agrees with my assessment of it. And when he first agreed with it in March 2020, he most certainly would have been privy to all available intel on why and how Trump's Pandemic could have been prevented:

[URL]https://news.yahoo.com/bob-woodward-stunned-trump-told-091902598.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]Trump on recorded audio, "It came out of China. And it shouldve been stopped. And to be honest with you, Barron, they shouldve let it be known it was a problem two months earlier ... the world wouldnt have a problem. We could have stopped it easily.[/QUOTE][B]Trump says China should have told us about coronavirus. He removed the official meant to do that.[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/23/21190713/coronavirus-trump-china-cdc-embed-quick[/URL]

[QUOTE]With the administration planning to discontinue the role, the embed return to the US about five months before China began to see its first Covid-19 cases. Under normal circumstances, the embed likely would have passed information about the novel virus to US officials. Instead, Chinese officials were able for weeks to conceal the virus and the threat it posed, leading to a delay in the worlds response to what was then a matter of great concern and is now a pandemic.
....
Trump said, "I wish China told us three months sooner that this was a problem, the president said. We didnt know about it, they knew about it, and they should have told us, we could have saved a lot of lives throughout the world.
....
As Redfield mentioned, the US and China have long collaborated on matters of public health. As part of that collaboration, China has allowed the US to embed a public health official in its CDC.

Until July 2019, that embed was Dr. Linda Quick, an epidemiologist. Quick led a program that trained Chinese epidemiologists in methods for discovering, tracking, researching, and containing diseases like Covid-19.[/QUOTE]

In order to "prove" what a great guy Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, your Breitbart link simply included a transcript from Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson's own misinformation show with zero links to substantiate his opinions.

In order to prove what a liar Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, my Media Matters link is chock full of hyper links citing the differences between the blithering misinformation spouted by Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson and the facts.

Media Matters is about calling out the media for lies and misinformation regardless of perceived political affiliation. MSNBC's Chris Matthews has earned their Misinformer of the Year Award in the past.

They can't wait to kick Biden in front of a speeding train, they are upset he isn't dead already.

So this CM?

[URL]https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chris-matthews-i-felt-thi_n_86449[/URL]

Or this CM?

Sure the left will kick a white guy in front of a speeding train any day of the week.

BTW your attempts to constantly manipulate the overton window on every issue is quite underwhelming I must say jajajajajaja.

ID warn you they will get to you eventually even though you think you're on the same team but you already bolted out of California, or is that why?

Did they sodomize you too bro?

First they came for the Communists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me.

And there was no one left.

To speak out for me.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774522]Hey, while I'm not a fan of the federal government in general, I agree that pandemic preparedness should be a focus of our federal government. George W. Bush and Bill Gates had it right. I'm not going to defend the Trump Administration for reducing funding for that. I will note that the real Dumb Ass behind a lot of the changes was John Bolton, who Trump did eventually fire.

As to Tooms' belief that COVID was "Trump's Pandemic", that Trump was responsible for it, it's laughable. Yes, 350,000 Americans died in 2020 from COVID, before a vaccine was available. Trump should have used the bully pulpit to encourage people to use N95 and KN95 masks and to avoid super spreader events (like his indoor campaign rally.) But a lot of people died in many other countries as well. When Biden took over we had the vaccine. And since then another 700,000 Americans have died from COVID. Fewer would be dead if the Biden administration had used its bully pulpit to persuade more Americans to get vaccinated and get Paxlovid.

Biden's a believer in the vaccine, masks and testing. But boy was he ineffective when it came to implementation. Only about 36% of Americans over 65 have received the bivalent booster. There should have been masks and test kits in every American's Christmas stocking a year ago, when Omicron kicked off. He was a day late and a dollar short.

You'll undoubtedly reply that Republicans were the ones who were less likely to get vaccinated and wear masks. Well, if the current dumb ass in the White House (I'd argue the current and last three occupants were all dumb asses) were a little more bipartisan instead of viewing his job as our country's Divider In Chief, maybe some Republicans would have been more receptive.[/QUOTE]You seem to forget that during one of Donnie the Dumbass' rallies before the 2020 election, he urged [B]his supporters[/B] to get vaccinated [B]and they boo'ed him[/B] after he said it. [URL]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-alabama-rally-after-telling-supporters-get-vaccinated-n1277404[/URL] And they also boo'ed him when he said that he had gotten a booster. [URL]https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-12-22/trump-tells-followers-he-got-a-booster-shot-they-booed[/URL].

What does this mean? What it means is that absolutely nothing that President Biden said or did re: COVID would have convinced Donnie's supporters to get vaccinated or boosted. After all, they were so stupid that they boo'ed their own god!

And the fact is that President Biden did press for more vaccinations. [URL]https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/22/fact-sheet-biden-administration-announces-six-week-campaign-to-get-more-americans-their-updated-covid-19-vaccine-before-end-of-the-year/[/URL] But also remember that SCOTUS (predictably) put the kaibash on vaccine mandates.

And you can complain all you want about vaccinations, etc and who refuses to get them but the facts are that, as a group, refusal to get vaccinated is higher (by a lot) among Repubs than Dems. [URL]https://morningconsult.com/covid19-vaccine-dashboard/[/URL] Free test kits and masks to everybody in the USA would have meant nothing since 30-some-odd-percent of the population would have thrown the masks away anyway.

The USA is so polarized right now that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to vaccinate the unvaccinated and to boost the unboosted. Or to convince the stupid that masks work. Or that social distancing works. Perhaps you remember the old adage: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. That, in a nutshell, describes the USA.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2773325]Yes, the guy is [B]absolutely[/B] full of crap and so is every COVID vaccine denier.[/QUOTE]Yes, by all means make a statement and then do not look at the data.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2773325]Yes, there have been reports of blood clots. Since the vaccine deniers don't believe anything from the CDC, here's some data from the UK's Public Health service: "Up to 28 April 2021, the MHRA received 242 reports of thrombosis events with low platelets of which 93 were cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), out of a total of 22.6 million first doses ofCOVID-19 AZ vaccine given by that date in the UK. " I'm not going to bother doing the math because the vaccine deniers will say that the math is "fake news", but when I went to school, 242 reported cases out of 22.6 million doses is an extremely small percentage.[/QUOTE]Hey, that is TTP, a very specific disorder with a 90% mortality if untreated. Thrombotic (clots) thrombocytopenic (low platelets) purpura (rash). This is an autoimmune clotting mechanism different than the one I previously listed, and low platelets are usually associated with high bleeding rates not clots.

And BTW, do you think the immune system works as all or nothing? In other words, do all allergies have to be anaphylactic or can there be milder symptoms like just a rash or a runny nose? Or in this case, can there be clots without TTP? Of course, there can.

Point is the vaccine causes clots, and blood clots are not a big deal if they are just localized to someone's arm. Thing is that the spike protein created by the vaccine and what creates the immune response is not going to do much damage if it stays in the arm. The problem is that it did not. When it hits the ovaries, heart, and lungs, that is when the clotting causes a mess.

Drug companies swore the spike protein stayed in the arm, and it does not. For some people, it migrates, and you have no clue how often it does.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773224]I tend to believe this guy when he's talking about statins and the like. I don't know, because my doctor's never prescribed those for me, so I've never looked at them closely.[/QUOTE]Everything he said on statins and the vaccines is correct.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773224]I think he's probably largely full of crap about the COVID vaccine. I say that after initially thinking maybe he's on to something and I've been mistaken. But looking at CDC and UK data, the death rates from heart attacks and other heart disease haven't really gone up since the start of 2021. From listening to him you'd think that deaths from heart disease should be up 20%. They're not.[/QUOTE]Death rates are tricky. You can put a lot under Covid related deaths. And 95% of all people who die in hospitals have blood clots, and 30% have large ones, so these deaths can be hidden, but there has been a rise in cardiac issues particularly with younger men.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2773224]A second point he brought up, that you had to vaccinate 7320 people over the age of 18 to save one life during the Omicron wave, is absurd.[/QUOTE]No, that is people over 80. The number of people over 18 is probably 100,000 people because so few young people die with the vaccine. At that rate, just the TTP risk would be reason to pull the vaccine. That one in 800 people are disabled from the vaccine is new data to me but is true from what I have seen.

Remember what the vaccine does Tiny. Whenever you see Covid, you see these limbs of attachment. That is the spike protein. It is not the lethal part of the virus, and that spike protein has adapted such that the body's most specific antibodies (monoclonal antibodies) do not recognize it. Most of the lab made monoclonal antibodies (MAs) had to be junked with omicron.

The immune system is like an army and the MAs were the snipers. They would kill the virus and nothing else. The rest of the immune system is like rockets and tanks which destroy healthy tissue along with the virus. And all the vaccine is doing now is those rockets and tanks, and that is why it should be pulled.

What should have happened is the vaccine should have been mandated for everyone if alpha stayed around. With delta, the vaccine should have been limited to high risk. With omicron, it should be pulled. No one asks vaccine status anymore because it does not matter.

So you have the Republican retards who are ridiculously antivax (we do not have any here despite what is said) and then you have the Democratic douches piling on saying the vaccine still works when it clearly does not. It is amazing how much of this debate is driven by politics and not scientific data.

On top of the vaccine not working, this current strand of Covid is not just like the flu. It is much weaker than the flu. This current crop of Influenza A is nasty and the flu vaccine appears not to have worked. Then you are seeing horrible RSV infections in young children which is likely a product of all the stupid school shutdowns and lockdowns.

Just like you have limits on cranking out snipers and tanks during the war, your body has a limited capacity with its immune system. Taking the vaccine is the equivalent of the Maginot line and fighting yesterday's war. I could give a shit about Covid now. You do not even think the people who have it look sick. In comparison, people with influenza A now look like death warmed over. Not only is the drug for it, Tamiflu, been out at most pharmacies, some drug stores are limiting the amount you can purchase of children's Advil and Tylenol.

Interesting post, thanks Elvis.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]Death rates are tricky. You can put a lot under Covid related deaths. And 95% of all people who die in hospitals have blood clots, and 30% have large ones, so these deaths can be hidden, but there has been a rise in cardiac issues particularly with younger men.[/QUOTE]The way around that is to look at excess deaths. The Economist tries to keep track of that on a daily basis, but you have to subscribe to see the data. Our World in Data picks up some of the info from the Economist.

[URL]https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid[/URL]

And the World Health Organization recently published a paper on the subject in Nature.

[URL]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05522-2[/URL]

The excess deaths are higher than actual deaths attributed to COVID. They're not that far apart here in the USA, around 1.3 million excess deaths since the start of COVID compared to the 1.1 million official count. And yes, you can make the argument that, for example, more people died from heart disease in 2020 because they couldn't get into hospitals for routine treatment. Anyway, the CDC maintains that COVID was the third leading cause of death in 2020 and 2021, and will be again in 2022, and I think they're right.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]No, that is people over 80. The number of people over 18 is probably 100,000 people because so few young people die with the vaccine. [/QUOTE]The purported 1 in 7200 number was from Omicron. Given that about one out of every 1100 people in the USA have died from Omicron (300,000 / 330,000,000), and given the vaccine and boosters were about 80% effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths from Omicron, and given that 64% of the population had been fully vaccinated (and 75% had received at least one shot) at the peak of the Omicron wave, the 1 in 7200 number just doesn't make sense. Based on a back of the envelope calculation based on the preceding, every 820 full vaccinations would have saved one life since Omicron became the predominant variant. And yes, as you've implied, you'll save a lot more lives putting those shots into the arms of the elderly and the high risk than the young and healthy.

By the way, these numbers would also imply an average infection fatality ratio for the unvaccinated during Omicron so far of about 0.19%, or actually a bit lower, as I'm assuming the unvaccinated only got Omicron once. This is lower than the 0.5% back in 2020 and early 2021.

And it's continuing to drop. More and more people have gotten infected, thus gaining immunity. The peak official case count during January, 2022, during the Omicron was around 800,000/ day. Previously the highest was around 250,000 per day.

This virologist estimates the IFR is now around .05% to .07%.

[URL]https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1599830528420904961[/URL]

He was quoted in the New York Times,

"The virologist Trevor Bedford, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute in Seattle, has estimated that the risk of Covid is similar to that of the flu, with one death in 2,000 infections, about one tenth of what it was originally, with one death in 200 infections.

But data from England, and the decrease in publicly reported PCR. Tests, suggests there is likely a tenfold increase in unreported Covid cases compared with a year ago, Dr. Bedford said. Because there are more Covid infections than flu infections each year, more Americans are likely to die from Covid even if the death rate is similar. Moreover, Dr. Bedford wrote on Twitter that the risk of long Covid, a constellation of symptoms that can plague people for months, places the "health burden of Covid substantially higher than influenza."

In any event, it appears that if your average American gets COVID, he's no more likely to die from it than the flu.

I've gotten a flu shot every year since I turned 30. I haven't had the flu since. I got the COVID vaccine and three boosters, and I haven't gotten COVID. In fact, I've only gotten a cold once since COVID kicked off. Maybe the vaccine provides some protection against other coronaviruses, besides COVID. I don't want to get the flu or COVID, so I'll continue getting shots to reduce the risk of getting severe disease.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]At that rate, just the TTP risk would be reason to pull the vaccine. That one in 800 people are disabled from the vaccine is new data to me but is true from what I have seen.[/QUOTE]I wasn't aware of the TTP risk for the mRNA vaccines before reading this. From what I'm Googling, the risk appears to be small. This study was only able to identify published case reports for 27 patients where they linked TTP to the vaccines.

[URL]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9060716/[/URL]

I agree there's risk. A friend of mine probably died from the COVID vaccine. Still, I believe it's a numbers game, and for someone my age, I'm about 100X (wild guess) more likely to die from the disease than from the vaccines and boosters.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]Remember what the vaccine does Tiny. Whenever you see Covid, you see these limbs of attachment. That is the spike protein. It is not the lethal part of the virus, and that spike protein has adapted such that the body's most specific antibodies (monoclonal antibodies) do not recognize it. Most of the lab made monoclonal antibodies (MAs) had to be junked with omicron.

The immune system is like an army and the MAs were the snipers. They would kill the virus and nothing else. The rest of the immune system is like rockets and tanks which destroy healthy tissue along with the virus. And all the vaccine is doing now is those rockets and tanks, and that is why it should be pulled.[/QUOTE]Wouldn't the new bivalent vaccine, and newer (future versions) overcome this to an extent, like for the flu vaccine?

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2774766]On top of the vaccine not working, this current strand of Covid is not just like the flu. It is much weaker than the flu. This current crop of Influenza A is nasty and the flu vaccine appears not to have worked. Then you are seeing horrible RSV infections in young children which is likely a product of all the stupid school shutdowns and lockdowns. Just like you have limits on cranking out snipers and tanks during the war, your body has a limited capacity with its immune system. Taking the vaccine is the equivalent of the Maginot line and fighting yesterday's war. I could give a shit about Covid now. You do not even think the people who have it look sick. In comparison, people with influenza A now look like death warmed over. Not only is the drug for it, Tamiflu, been out at most pharmacies, some drug stores are limiting the amount you can purchase of children's Advil and Tylenol. [/QUOTE]If you've been following this, I've no doubt it's true, as to the current crop of Influenza A. Bedford's point (see above) is that COVID is more contagious than the flu and COVID can produce long lasting effects.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2774762]You seem to forget that during one of Donnie the Dumbass' rallies before the 2020 election, he urged [B]his supporters[/B] to get vaccinated [B]and they boo'ed him[/B] after he said it. [URL]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-alabama-rally-after-telling-supporters-get-vaccinated-n1277404[/URL] And they also boo'ed him when he said that he had gotten a booster. [URL]https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-12-22/trump-tells-followers-he-got-a-booster-shot-they-booed[/URL].

What does this mean? What it means is that absolutely nothing that President Biden said or did re: COVID would have convinced Donnie's supporters to get vaccinated or boosted. After all, they were so stupid that they boo'ed their own god![/QUOTE]This is an excellent illustration of why this is not "Trump's Pandemic", as Tooms says. America is a free country. People were going to do what people were going to do, regardless of what Trump did or said. Plus, thankfully given our differences and divisions, we have a federal system. Texas and Florida had different COVID strategies than New York and California. Trump didn't have control over that.

Since February, 2021, those of us who wanted to protect ourselves could get vaccinated and wear N95 or KN95 masks when appropriate. My main complaint about those who took this lightly and got hospitalized for COVID is that that the taxpayer and those paying the insurance bills had to pay for their treatment.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774600]I was supposed to be explaining The Great Biden Recession that many Wingers here and in the media were screetching that we were already IN back in early 2021.

Never happened.[/QUOTE]There's a good chance we'll go into a recession next year as a result of higher interest rates, to control inflation. Despite my beliefs about the American Rescue Plan I will not ascribe most, or even the majority of the blame for the recession to Biden.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2774620]In order to "prove" what a great guy Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, your Breitbart link simply included a transcript from Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson's own misinformation show with zero links to substantiate his opinions.

In order to prove what a liar Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson is, my Media Matters link is chock full of hyper links citing the differences between the blithering misinformation spouted by Misinformer of the Year Tucker Carlson and the facts.

Media Matters is about calling out the media for lies and misinformation regardless of perceived political affiliation. MSNBC's Chris Matthews has earned their Misinformer of the Year Award in the past.

They can't wait to kick Biden in front of a speeding train, they are upset he isn't dead already.

So this CM?

[URL]https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chris-matthews-i-felt-thi_n_86449[/URL]

Or this CM?

Sure the left will kick a white guy in front of a speeding train any day of the week.

BTW your attempts to constantly manipulate the overton window on every issue is quite underwhelming I must say jajajajajaja.

ID warn you they will get to you eventually even though you think you're on the same team but you already bolted out of California, or is that why?

Did they sodomize you too bro?

First they came for the Communists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me.

And there was no one left.

To speak out for me.[/QUOTE]And all of that drama just to help your beloved Repubs win elections so they can continue to enrich and delight Mainstream Media with their inevitable massive jobs destruction, economic and national security disaster results headlines.

Well, to each his own.

Oh, here's another CM for your collection:

[B]Matthews on Bush and the port deal: He looks like he's a wise man now ... almost Atticus Finch[/B]

[URL]https://www.mediamatters.org/msnbc/matthews-bush-and-port-deal-he-looks-hes-wise-man-now-almost-atticus-finch[/URL]

[QUOTE]On the February 24 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, host Chris Matthews joined Weekly Standard senior writer Stephen F. Hayes in praising President Bush's handling of the controversial agreement to turn over control of six U.S. ports to a company owned by the government of Dubai. Matthews compared Bush to Atticus Finch -- the Alabama lawyer who "represents morality and reason" in Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird (Warner Books).

Matthews's comparison of Bush to Finch -- a character portrayed by Gregory Peck in a 1962 film adaptation (Brentwood Productions, Pakula-Mulligan, Universal International Pictures) of the novel, and voted the number one movie hero of all time by the American Film Institute -- is just the most recent example of his over-the-top praise for Bush. As Media Matters for America has documented, Matthews previously gushed that Bush sometimes glimmers with sunny nobility; and falsely claimed that "everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs."[/QUOTE]Mind you, until you and your partners in typically pro-Repub MSM helped Trump become a so-called potus, GW Bush had the worst jobs, economic and national security record in history. Quite the opposite of Obama, Biden, Clinton and, well, every other Dem POTUS, you know. The ones we "whack-jobs" prefer to support.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774855]There's a good chance we'll go into a recession next year as a result of higher interest rates, to control inflation. Despite my beliefs about the American Rescue Plan I will not ascribe most, or even the majority of the blame for the recession to Biden.[/QUOTE]But why wouldn't you?

If you think the hyper-inflation occurring around the world was largely or significantly triggered by Biden's American Rescue Plan recovery legislation rather than the inevitable outcome of waking up and reviving pent up consumerism from a 2-year economic coma in the midst of collapsed global supply-chains and nonexistent staffing, wouldn't that legislation also be the culprit behind the Fed's efforts to artificially induce a recession in order to tame it?

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774853]My main complaint about those who took this lightly and got hospitalized for COVID is that that the taxpayer and those paying the insurance bills had to pay for their treatment.[/QUOTE]Ok great to hear that your a vegan, teetotal, exercising, non-smoker Tiny.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2774940]Ok great to hear that your a vegan, teetotal, exercising, non-smoker Tiny.[/QUOTE]Hey, I don't think there's any way society can avoid paying for medical expenses of smokers, the obese, the alcoholics, the sedentary and those who contract diseases because they're not cautious. And I don't believe it would be morally justified. But people who do that should stop. They put a cost on the rest of us, and most importantly on themselves. And yes, for most of us, in the long term smoking was and is a much, much bigger risk than failing to use masks when appropriate or not getting vaccinated.

As I've mentioned a couple of times to you, at this point, given that almost all Americans and Europeans have some immunity from COVID through disease if not vaccination, I don't think this is much of an issue. We're arguing about history. Please note I used past tense.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2774917]But why wouldn't you [blame Biden for a recession caused by the Fed increasing interest rates to control inflation]?

If you think the hyper-inflation occurring around the world was largely or significantly triggered by Biden's American Rescue Plan recovery legislation rather than the inevitable outcome of waking up and reviving pent up consumerism from a 2-year economic coma in the midst of collapsed global supply-chains and nonexistent staffing, wouldn't that legislation also be the culprit behind the Fed's efforts to artificially induce a recession in order to tame it?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2749483]And blaming recessions on the president is downright naive. To the extent that government has any control over the economic cycle, it's mostly in the hands of the Fed. What control does the chief executive, or the central bank (Fed) for that matter, have over whether there's a pandemic? Or whether OPEC decides to jack up oil prices? The timing of a dot com boom? Or, as an explanation of recessions in European countries, and a partial explanation of the upcoming Biden recession, a Russian invasion of Ukraine? Well, not a hell of a lot.

I tried to make this sink in by showing the correlation between Democratic presidents and American casualties in foreign wars, but it didn't stick, at least for Tooms.[/QUOTE]First, outside of a few countries like Argentina, Turkey, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, there is no hyper-inflation. I'd argue it's not necessarily a world wide problem. YoY inflation is sub 5% in east Asia (1.6% in China) and not way out of line with historical levels in a number of developing countries, like India and Brazil.

The USA sticks out as the only major economy suffering from high inflation in 2021, as you can see from the chart in my link. And, like the most prominent of economists affiliated with the Democratic Party, Larry Summers, I attribute a lot of that to Biden's American Rescue Plan.

Inflation in Europe is largely a result of

(a) the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I question whether this would have happened if Trump had been re-elected. I would not fault Biden though. The result would have been the same if most of the other establishment Democrats and Republicans were president instead.

(b) foolish energy policies on the part of European countries, which largely mirror what Democrats, progressives in particular, have wished for. Germany was doing away with its nuclear plants. Coal fired power plants were scrapped. Huge investment went into wind and solar, which cannot supply baseload capacity, when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. Europe didn't diversify its energy sources, by for example adding more LNG regassification facilities. (Compare to the Biden administration's shut down of the Keystone pipeline expansion, and the embargo on Venezuelan crude imports by Democrat wannabe Donald Trump.) Again I don't fault Biden. Biden is not the president of Europe.

As to the supply chain disruptions, causes included

(c) lockdowns in China to control COVID. These were similar to lockdowns favored by a number of Democratic state and local politicians to control COVID in the USA. Based on your criticisms of the "Trump Pandemic", I guess you favored them as well. I don't know how else the USA could have achieved results similar to China, Taiwan, New Zealand, etc. , without a huge, long nationwide lockdown. I don't fault Biden however, as Biden is not the president of China.

(e) The Trump and Biden Tariffs on China ripped apart supply chains.

(f) logistical snafus in the USA. The ports in California were perhaps the biggest contributor. Maybe you can blame local and state Democratic politicians, but not Biden. Biden's not dictator of California.

(g) not enough labor. Young to early-middle-aged male adults, a majority of whom were Democrats and Millenials, decided to sit on their asses in Mom's and Dad's house instead of returning to the labor force. To his credit, Biden has not been sitting on his ass. He's much more active than your average 80 year old. Maybe some of this is attributable to poorly targeted government programs, like in the American Rescue Plan, which may have discouraged work.

As to the issue at hand, the huge overstimulation of the USA Economy, there are mitigating circumstances, as to Biden's involvement.

(h) Donald Trump (Democrat implant in the Republican Party), Nancy Pelosi and many Congressmen were complicit in the huge helicopter drops of money into the USA Economy that resulted in $2. 5 trillion in excess savings by mid 2021. So the increase in demand for goods and services resulted not just from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, but earlier legislation as well. Every Democrat in Congress supported the American Rescue Plan. It wasn't just Joe Biden's fault.

(i) The Fed should have been increasing interest rates, starting from when the American Rescue Plan ignited inflation. It didn't. Admittedly the Fed Board of Governors is composed mostly of members appointed or re-appointed by Biden, but I think regardless, it would have been late to the game.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775139]First, outside of a few countries like Argentina, Turkey, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, there is no hyper-inflation. I'd argue it's not necessarily a world wide problem. YoY inflation is sub 5% in east Asia (1.6% in China) and not way out of line with historical levels in a number of developing countries, like India and Brazil.

The USA sticks out as the only major economy suffering from high inflation in 2021, as you can see from the chart in my link. And, like the most prominent of economists affiliated with the Democratic Party, Larry Summers, I attribute a lot of that to Biden's American Rescue Plan.

Inflation in Europe is largely a result of

(a) the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I question whether this would have happened if Trump had been re-elected. I would not fault Biden though. The result would have been the same if most of the other establishment Democrats and Republicans were president instead.

(b) foolish energy policies on the part of European countries, which largely mirror what Democrats, progressives in particular, have wished for. Germany was doing away with its nuclear plants. Coal fired power plants were scrapped. Huge investment went into wind and solar, which cannot supply baseload capacity, when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. Europe didn't diversify its energy sources, by for example adding more LNG regassification facilities. (Compare to the Biden administration's shut down of the Keystone pipeline expansion, and the embargo on Venezuelan crude imports by Democrat wannabe Donald Trump.) Again I don't fault Biden. Biden is not the president of Europe.

As to the supply chain disruptions, causes included

(c) lockdowns in China to control COVID. These were similar to lockdowns favored by a number of Democratic state and local politicians to control COVID in the USA. Based on your criticisms of the "Trump Pandemic", I guess you favored them as well. I don't know how else the USA could have achieved results similar to China, Taiwan, New Zealand, etc. , without a huge, long nationwide lockdown. I don't fault Biden however, as Biden is not the president of China.

(e) The Trump and Biden Tariffs on China ripped apart supply chains.

(f) logistical snafus in the USA. The ports in California were perhaps the biggest contributor. Maybe you can blame local and state Democratic politicians, but not Biden. Biden's not dictator of California.

(g) not enough labor. Young to early-middle-aged male adults, a majority of whom were Democrats and Millenials, decided to sit on their asses in Mom's and Dad's house instead of returning to the labor force. To his credit, Biden has not been sitting on his ass. He's much more active than your average 80 year old. Maybe some of this is attributable to poorly targeted government programs, like in the American Rescue Plan, which may have discouraged work.

As to the issue at hand, the huge overstimulation of the USA Economy, there are mitigating circumstances, as to Biden's involvement.

(h) Donald Trump (Democrat implant in the Republican Party), Nancy Pelosi and many Congressmen were complicit in the huge helicopter drops of money into the USA Economy that resulted in $2. 5 trillion in excess savings by mid 2021. So the increase in demand for goods and services resulted not just from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, but earlier legislation as well. Every Democrat in Congress supported the American Rescue Plan. It wasn't just Joe Biden's fault.

(i) The Fed should have been increasing interest rates, starting from when the American Rescue Plan ignited inflation. It didn't. Admittedly the Fed Board of Governors is composed mostly of members appointed or re-appointed by Biden, but I think regardless, it would have been late to the game.[/QUOTE]Very few if any other countries jumped into effective Trump's Pandemic vaccination and economic recovery measures as quickly in early 2021 as the USA did.

Thanks, Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.

You want Chinese-style lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation and YoY 1. 6% inflation in America while other countries' economies and recoveries from that 2-year Trump's Pandemic economic coma are roaring ahead at historic rates and capturing every available future economic opportunity in sight? No problem; help Repubs get elected so they can propose and achieve their usual crap economic results agenda, wipe out millions of jobs and plunge the country into another Great Repub Recession / Depression.

They've got the market cornered on keeping inflation very, very low in America that way.

BTW, other than you, I don't know anyone who gives a shit about what Larry Summers thinks. Not even Democrats I know. Many Dems thought Summers was almost as much of a load and drag on what could have been an even faster and better recovery from GW Bush's Great Repub Crash and Recession under Obama as the Repubs in Congress. Summers' involvement in domestic economic issues under Clinton didn't even happen until after the most important and effective economic legislation had already been passed by Clinton and his Dem Congress.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774843]The excess deaths are higher than actual deaths attributed to COVID. They're not that far apart here in the USA, around 1.3 million excess deaths since the start of COVID compared to the 1.1 million official count. And yes, you can make the argument that, for example, more people died from heart disease in 2020 because they couldn't get into hospitals for routine treatment. Anyway, the CDC maintains that COVID was the third leading cause of death in 2020 and 2021, and will be again in 2022, and I think they're right.

The purported 1 in 7200 number was from Omicron. Given that about one out of every 1100 people in the USA have died from Omicron (300,000 / 330,000,000), and given the vaccine and boosters were about 80% effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths from Omicron, and given that 64% of the population had been fully vaccinated (and 75% had received at least one shot) at the peak of the Omicron wave, the 1 in 7200 number just doesn't make sense. Based on a back of the envelope calculation based on the preceding, every 820 full vaccinations would have saved one life since Omicron became the predominant variant. And yes, as you've implied, you'll save a lot more lives putting those shots into the arms of the elderly and the high risk than the young and healthy.[/QUOTE]Tiny, those numbers are way off.

[URL]https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220621/Only-2025-of-Americans-have-effective-protection-against-Omicron-infection.aspx[/URL]

The study results demonstrated that the estimated proportion of the US population with a SARS-CoV-2 vaccination or infection history as of December 1, 2021, was 88.2%. Moreover, effective immunity toward the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron strain infection on December 1, 2021, was 21.8% nationwide.

[URL]https://time.com/6215580/original-vaccines-effectiveness-against-omicron/[/URL]

Researchers in Ontario analyzed data from more than 134,000 people, including those who tested positive for Delta and Omicron infections during December 2021. They found that people who were fully vaccinated (with two doses of an mRNA vaccine, from either Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech) experienced a decline in vaccine effectiveness against both Delta and Omicron infections, but the drop was greater against Omicron than against Delta. Among the vaccinated, the shots' effectiveness declined from 36% up to two months after the second dose of the primary series, to 1% up to four months later (or six months after the second dose).

[URL]https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/omicron-boosters-probably-aren-t-very-effective-against-mild-covid-illness-but-will-likely-prevent-hospitalizations-experts-say/ar-AA14yLok[/URL]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a real-world study published this week, found the boosters are less than 50% effective against mild illness across almost all adult age groups when compared to people who are unvaccinated.

And Tiny, you have to get 50% effectiveness to have a vaccine approved, and this is not against anything other than mild illness. That the vaccines are being mandated at this point is absurd, and those death numbers are crazy. I have seen one really sick person with omicron versus hundreds with the other strains. One in three Covid deaths due to omicron then is nuts.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774843]Wouldn't the new bivalent vaccine, and newer (future versions) overcome this to an extent, like for the flu vaccine?[/QUOTE]I have not seen any vaccine work against omicron and what is worse is the double blind placebo controlled studies for safety are not being done.

And Paxlovid is a shit drug too. [URL]https://time.com/6198667/paxlovid-who-should-take-covid-19/[/URL].

When you say it does not help the vaccinated and people under 65 (one study showed it hurt younger people), you are stretching it. To me, it is like what is next? People with jock itch but only those with warts on their left foot? And seeing as how the vaccines do not work against omicron, why should they affect Paxlovid? Still, this shit drug is slated to make billions just like the vaccines that do not work against omicron either.

Our entire initial response was based on what China did and how it "worked". Well, we know now it did not work. That form of the virus just burned itself out after three months like it always does and a new strain came back.

And it is hilarious to read how China is in such trouble because they have no immunity as if we do. If our immunity rate was 20% a year ago, it certainly is lower now. China is going to be fine because their version of Covid is just not that bad. They just needed to quit freaking out about Covid.

Governments fucking around with viruses caused this pandemic, and the scary part is how cheap and easy it is to do. I showed a study where researchers made a Covid strain that was 80% lethal.

This stuff needs to be buttoned up as tight as nuclear power, and people should be asking how government let this happen and trusting them way less than they do.

Instead we have these Democratic who swear all these government interventions worked when they did not do shit. What does work and what likely will always work is what TK advocated, healthy living.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]Very few if any other countries jumped into effective Trump's Pandemic vaccination and economic recovery measures as quickly in early 2021 as the USA did.

Thanks, Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.[/QUOTE]LOL. More people died with Biden as president than Trump with the virus. Meanwhile, you douches still keep thinking you can control the climate. Hey, Tooms, so tell me how is it that this record cold snap is the fault of Republicans and not Democrats?

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2775336]LOL. More people died with Biden as president than Trump with the virus. Meanwhile, you douches still keep thinking you can control the climate. Hey, Tooms, so tell me how is it that this record cold snap is the fault of Republicans and not Democrats?[/QUOTE]LOL. Yeah, mostly sucker Repubs who fell for Trump's near year long BS that "It's disappearing. It will go away without a vaccine"!

Oh well. Biden tried to save their lives anyway.

[B]Record-Breaking Heatwaves Around the World In 2022[/B]

[URL]https://www.careourearth.com/record-breaking-heatwaves-around-the-world-in-2022/[/URL]

[QUOTE=Elvis 2008;2775336]LOL. More people died with Biden as president than Trump with the virus. [/QUOTE]

Indeed!

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]Very few if any other countries jumped into effective Trump's Pandemic vaccination and economic recovery measures as quickly in early 2021 as the USA did.[/QUOTE]You're too generous. It wasn't only the Trump Administration and its Operation Warp Speed that paved the way to vaccinate most Americans and recover from the pandemic. Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna were each just as or more important.

I read the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan as a % of GDP was much larger than any stimulus plan passed by any other country in 2021, which is largely or mostly why inflation hit us before other countries. And that was just part of the $5 trillion in additional spending authorized by a Democratic President, House and Senate during the two years they controlled government.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]Thanks, Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.[/QUOTE]I would thank them too if I were you! If my income were from renting out apartments and houses, like yours, I'd be over the moon! In the 12 months after the American Rescue Plan was passed and turbocharged inflation (March, 2021 to March, 2022) , asking rental rates were up 17%.

[URL]https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-rental-report-may-2022/[/URL]

Average hourly earnings however were only up 5.6%.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003[/URL]

Yes, landlords like you benefitted mightily. Working men and women who were stretching harder and harder to pay their rents did not.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]You want Chinese-style lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation and YoY 1.6% inflation in America[/QUOTE]I'm confused. I thought that was what you wanted. The only way to prevent your so called "Trump Pandemic" in the USA would have been to institute lockdowns and controls like Peoples' Republic of China. Forever. And yes, the result would be lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation, and low inflation or deflation. Forever.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775197]BTW, other than you, I don't know anyone who gives a shit about what Larry Summers thinks. Not even Democrats I know. Many Dems thought Summers was almost as much of a load and drag on what could have been an even faster and better recovery from GW Bush's Great Repub Crash and Recession under Obama as the Repubs in Congress. Summers' involvement in domestic economic issues under Clinton didn't even happen until after the most important and effective economic legislation had already been passed by Clinton and his Dem Congress.[/QUOTE]Summers and Furman agree that additional stimulus would have been wise after the 2008 recession caused by the Fed, mortgage originators, lenders, rating agencies and homebuyers, aided and abetted by Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democratic politicians who forced financial institutions to give housing loans to people who could not afford them. They also agree the American Rescue Plan put way too much stimulus into the economy, and played a major part in the inflation since its passage.

As Robert Rubin's deputy, and later as Secretary of the Treasury, Summers presided over good things, along with President Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and a Republican House. (Spending bills originate in the House.) Federal government expenditures were the lowest as a % of GDP since the Ford administration. And they'll probably never be that low again. We balanced the budget and lowered the capital gains tax.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775423]Indeed!

You're too generous. It wasn't only the Trump Administration and its Operation Warp Speed that paved the way to vaccinate most Americans and recover from the pandemic. Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna were each just as or more important.

I read the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan as a % of GDP was much larger than any stimulus plan passed by any other country in 2021, which is largely or mostly why inflation hit us before other countries. And that was just part of the $5 trillion in additional spending authorized by a Democratic President, House and Senate during the two years they controlled government.

I would thank them too if I were you! If my income were from renting out apartments and houses, like yours, I'd be over the moon! In the 12 months after the American Rescue Plan was passed and turbocharged inflation (March, 2021 to March, 2022) , asking rental rates were up 17%.

[URL]https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-rental-report-may-2022/[/URL]

Average hourly earnings however were only up 5.6%.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003[/URL]

Yes, landlords like you benefitted mightily. Working men and women who were stretching harder and harder to pay their rents did not.

I'm confused. I thought that was what you wanted. The only way to prevent your so called "Trump Pandemic" in the USA would have been to institute lockdowns and controls like Peoples' Republic of China. Forever. And yes, the result would be lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation, and low inflation or deflation. Forever.

Summers and Furman agree that additional stimulus would have been wise after the 2008 recession caused by the Fed, mortgage originators, lenders, rating agencies and homebuyers, aided and abetted by Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democratic politicians who forced financial institutions to give housing loans to people who could not afford them. They also agree the American Rescue Plan put way too much stimulus into the economy, and played a major part in the inflation since its passage.

As Robert Rubin's deputy, and later as Secretary of the Treasury, Summers presided over good things, along with President Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and a Republican House. (Spending bills originate in the House.) Federal government expenditures were the lowest as a % of GDP since the Ford administration. And they'll probably never be that low again. We balanced the budget and lowered the capital gains tax.[/QUOTE]Now we have evidence that the 2 million+ American deaths from Trump's Pandemic virus spanning 2020 and into 2021 was a Trump Team and Family effort and result, not just due to Trump's own disastrous decisions creating the Pandemic in the first place and then assuring his mass murder victims for nearly a year that "It's disappearing. It will go away without a vaccine"!

[B]Transcripts: Jared Blocked Biden Transition From Covid Planning.
Biden was particularly angered that by slowing the transition process, Trumps actions could lead to more deaths[/B]

[URL]https://crooksandliars.com/2022/12/transcripts-jared-blocked-biden-transition[/URL]

Also, here are some of the Real World factors academics like Larry Summers missed when they jotted down a few math calculations and concluded, "Gee, lookie here. This stimulus is too much! We should do less now and do a little more next year, maybe a little more the year after that. You know, wait for those collapsed global supply-chains to start cranking out more supply so we don't overwhelm them with demand before they are ready to deliver. ".

Sounds wonderful, right? What a pleasant idea. Kinda' like that wonderfully pleasant Supply-Side / Trickle-Down Repub economic idea.

And it would have Crashed into the Real World and failed just as miserably.

1. Biden knew there was a 99.99% chance of at least a Pink Tinkle, a nod to PVM for that appropriate "Pink" description LOL, in the House at the 2022 midterms. Which meant there would be NO followup ANYTHING emanating from the House to help the USA or Global Economies starting this very next week. Practically speaking, anything that was going to recover America and worldwide economies from Trump's Pandemic disaster needed to be done in the first year or two. Period. There would be no 2nd, 3rd or more shots at it over a pleasantly paced few years.

Just one Dem Senate death, scandal bad enough to drive one out of office or defection for personal enrichment at any minute from January 20,2021 would also put a complete and total end to the recovery if all the usual Repub shenanigans worked to replace them with just one Repub.

2. Global supply-chains were NOT going to crank up back in action, rehire millions, start producing goods and products, shipping channels start flowing apace and all of the other pleasant conditions that counter the risk of hyper-inflation BEFORE there was overwhelming demand forcing them to do so. It does not happen the other way around in economics or business. Ever. Note the constant disastrous failure of that pleasant Supply-Side / Trickle-Down Repub idea.

Nope. Somebody, somewhere, some big and powerful nation of consumers, people who not only had the power to do it but could well afford to do it needed to lead the way to creating that overwhelming demand first and, yep, take the earliest hit of lower supply vs higher demand inflation and get those global supply-chains and shipping channels moving again, snap them out of their 2-year coma and start recovering the world from the unprecedented economic disaster of Trump's Pandemic.

But who in the world would be the logical leader for such a thing? Goodness gracious, Larry, let's put our pencils down, gather our Thoughts and Prayers and see if we can come up with the name of a nation brave and capable enough to do it.

Zimbabwe?

Brexit-crippled United Kingdom?

China?

How about the United States of America, Larry?

Thank you, America. More specifically, thank you Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.

And, sure enough, they managed to lead the world in this historic recovery when no other nation would or could, weather the hyper-inflation without any significant hit to historic domestic jobs creation, consumer spending and economic expansion strong enough to make it a serious challenge for the Fed to artificially induce so much as a mild recession in order to cool it down.

That's what Biden knew and factored into the calculation that academics like Larry Summers did not.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775423]Indeed!

You're too generous. It wasn't only the Trump Administration and its Operation Warp Speed that paved the way to vaccinate most Americans and recover from the pandemic. Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna were each just as or more important.

I read the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan as a % of GDP was much larger than any stimulus plan passed by any other country in 2021, which is largely or mostly why inflation hit us before other countries. And that was just part of the $5 trillion in additional spending authorized by a Democratic President, House and Senate during the two years they controlled government.

[b]I would thank them too if I were you! If my income were from renting out apartments and houses, like yours, I'd be over the moon! In the 12 months after the American Rescue Plan was passed and turbocharged inflation (March, 2021 to March, 2022) , asking rental rates were up 17%.[/b]

[URL]https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-rental-report-may-2022/[/URL]

Average hourly earnings however were only up 5.6%.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003[/URL]

Yes, landlords like you benefitted mightily. Working men and women who were stretching harder and harder to pay their rents did not.

[b]I'm confused. I thought that was what you wanted. The only way to prevent your so called "Trump Pandemic" in the USA would have been to institute lockdowns and controls like Peoples' Republic of China. Forever. And yes, the result would be lingering shit economic conditions, crap jobs creation, and low inflation or deflation. Forever.[/b]

Summers and Furman agree that additional stimulus would have been wise after the 2008 recession caused by the Fed, mortgage originators, lenders, rating agencies and homebuyers, aided and abetted by Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democratic politicians who forced financial institutions to give housing loans to people who could not afford them. They also agree the American Rescue Plan put way too much stimulus into the economy, and played a major part in the inflation since its passage.

As Robert Rubin's deputy, and later as Secretary of the Treasury, Summers presided over good things, along with President Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and a Republican House. (Spending bills originate in the House.) Federal government expenditures were the lowest as a % of GDP since the Ford administration. And they'll probably never be that low again. We balanced the budget and lowered the capital gains tax.[/QUOTE]As a landlord, the destruction of worldwide economies thanks to Trump creating Trump's Pandemic has not been a net gain for me. Trump's decisions and economic stewardship wiping out millions upon millions of jobs for working men and women is not "good" for landlords whose tenants are those very men and women.

Despite Biden's historic jobs creation and recovery from the colossal mess Trump created and left behind, the mess was great enough for me to earn a tax refund for 2020, the first in several decades, due to lost income from a rental gone empty for a few months in 2020. In order to get it rented again ASAP under Trump's dire economic conditions, I did not increase the ask any higher than it had been before. I only raised rent a couple of months after I could according to the lease terms and then only by 5%.

And on the Trump lockdowns and closures, you do appear to be quite confused as stated. See, if Trump had not removed the officials whose job it was to monitor and alert the world of a potential Pandemic 5 months before those first cases emerged in China while Trump's intel assured him only a two or three month heads up would have been plenty to prevent the Pandemic from happening in the first place, there would have been no need for all those lockdowns and closures anywhere outside of a particular region in China.

And all while the vaccine manufacturers could follow Obama's Rapid Vaccine Response programs to create, test and acquire more effective and efficient approval of the best vaccines for it.

Where you got the idea that I wanted Trump to create Trump's Pandemic and plunge the world into economic paralysis, lockdowns and closures is bewildering and, I suppose, evidence of your confusion.

Hi Elvis,

Like I mentioned to JustTK a couple of times, we're arguing about history. Now practically all unvaccinated Americans have some immunity from severe COVID infection by virtue of being infected.

I never said the vaccine and boosters provided good protection from infection with Omicron variants. Rather, they provided good protection from severe disease, meaning hospitalization and death, in particular for older and high risk people.

This chart is enlightening, which shows death rate by vaccination status, for Americans over 50, from April 2, 2022 to September 3, 2022, when Omicron has predominated.

[URL]https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~50%2B[/URL]

Your sources show something similar if you dig deeper. For example,

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2775333]Tiny, those numbers are way off.

[URL]https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220621/Only-2025-of-Americans-have-effective-protection-against-Omicron-infection.aspx[/URL]

The study results demonstrated that the estimated proportion of the US population with a SARS-CoV-2 vaccination or infection history as of December 1, 2021, was 88.2%. Moreover, effective immunity toward the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron strain infection on December 1, 2021, was 21.8% nationwide.[/QUOTE]Your link above says, "Effective immunity against severe COVID-19 associated with Omicron was 61.2% across the US. " Please note that the effective immunity against severe disease from Omicron would be higher for the vaccinated and boosted versus the unvaccinated.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2775333][URL]https://time.com/6215580/original-vaccines-effectiveness-against-omicron/[/URL]

Researchers in Ontario analyzed data from more than 134,000 people, including those who tested positive for Delta and Omicron infections during December 2021. They found that people who were fully vaccinated (with two doses of an mRNA vaccine, from either Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech) experienced a decline in vaccine effectiveness against both Delta and Omicron infections, but the drop was greater against Omicron than against Delta. Among the vaccinated, the shots' effectiveness declined from 36% up to two months after the second dose of the primary series, to 1% up to four months later (or six months after the second dose).[/QUOTE]From the link above, "On the plus side, Kwong's study confirmed previous data showing that [B] vaccinated people who also received a first booster dose remain protected from getting seriously ill with COVID-19, even if they are infected with Omicron; vaccine effectiveness against severe disease was about 95% a week or more after the third dose." [/B]

The study described in your third link, on [URL]msn.com[/URL], which has been highly publicized from what I can see, didn't look at severe disease.

This study was mentioned prominently on Doctor Radio (Sirius XM channel 110) the other evening, which indicates the new Omicron booster is 84% effective at keeping people over 65 out of the hospital, compared to seniors who never got the vaccine:

[URL]https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm715152e2.htm[/URL]

Like I've written here before, mostly replying to JustTK, if you're relatively young and not high risk, the case wasn't as strong for vaccination and boosters. If I had been 30 again in 2021, I probably would have gotten vaccinated and boosted, but I'm not sure that would be the best path to take. For people like me though, who are older or high risk, it's a no brainer.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2775333]And Paxlovid is a shit drug too. [URL]https://time.com/6198667/paxlovid-who-should-take-covid-19/[/URL].

When you say it does not help the vaccinated and people under 65 (one study showed it hurt younger people), you are stretching it. To me, it is like what is next? People with jock itch but only those with warts on their left foot? And seeing as how the vaccines do not work against omicron, why should they affect Paxlovid? Still, this shit drug is slated to make billions just like the vaccines that do not work against omicron either.[/QUOTE]From what I've read and heard on Doctor Radio, Paxlovid is a great option for high risk patients. I'm not sure that I'd be classified as high risk, being over 50 but under 65 but otherwise healthy. But I don't care. I'd take try to get the stuff, even if symptoms were mild at the time of the test. What's the downside? From what people have told me and what I've read, it's the taste. A small price to pay if it prevents hospitalization or long COVID. The Japanese are the most overmedicated people in the world, and they live longer than the rest of us.

You seem to know more about this than your average bear though. If you're aware of real downsides, other than having to stop certain medications while you're on Paxlovid, I'd appreciate your passing that on.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775524]And on the Trump lockdowns and closures, you do appear to be quite confused as stated. See, if Trump had not removed the officials whose job it was to monitor and alert the world of a potential Pandemic 5 months before those first cases emerged in China while Trump's intel assured him only a two or three month heads up would have been plenty to prevent the Pandemic from happening in the first place, there would have been no need for all those lockdowns and closures anywhere outside of a particular region in China.[/QUOTE]Hi Tooms, This sounds like something that might come from the pen of a conspiracy theorist, like a QAnon adherent, instead of one of our venerable left-of-center Board Members. It might make a good plot for a movie. A young Harrison Ford is a scientist who is planted within the Chinese CDC. He brilliantly and presciently persuades the Chinese authorities that the world is on the verge of a pandemic and somehow they stop the spread.

But come on. We're not living in the world of Deng Xiaopeng and Jimmy Carter. We're living in the world of Ji Xin Ping, and both American political parties want to punish China economically and the Democrats want to make Ji a pariah. Chinese authorities covered up the pandemic, and persecuted doctors and other citizens who tried to publicize what was happening in Wuhan. Millions of Chinese, a number of whom were infected with COVID, were flying all over China and the rest of the world up through the Lunar New Year (late January, 2020). The cat was out of the bag. COVID mostly came to the USA via travelers from Europe, not China.

The World Health Organization wasn't in a position to make a difference, let alone the USA CDC.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2775493][URL]https://crooksandliars.com/2022/12/transcripts-jared-blocked-biden-transition[/URL][/QUOTE]That's a new one, Crooks and Liars, a Progressive media site dedicated to calling Republicans crooks and liars. Well, Americans need to pull their heads out of the sand. Most of the politicians at the federal level are crooks and liars. The only exceptions in my book are some of the Republicans who Trump made unelectable.

The one substantive point you make in your post, with basis in fact, is about supply chains. I've already addressed this in a previous reply. Supply chains are fucked up partly because of lockdowns in China, which again I presume you and many other Democrats would support if you were Chinese, based on your criticisms of Trump and Republican governors. Then there were the Trump tariffs, which Biden could have remedied with the stroke of a pen. Instead he piled more restrictions on China, and the result is wholesale re-construction of supply chains to avoid Chinese production.

Also there's the war in Ukraine / Russia, which sent fuel prices up, re-routed Russian oil, gas and coal to new markets, and caused grain prices to go up and grain supply to go down. You and I may dislike Trump, but my guess is none of this would have happened if he'd been re-elected. Furthermore, Democrats' existential threats to the fossil fuels industry in the USA (banning drilling on federal leases, banning fracking, going too fast to net "0" carbon emissions) definitely increased the cost of electricity and natural gas used for heating and industrial applications in the U.S. And made it more difficult for USA LNG to serve as a partial replacement for Russian gas supplies to Europe. The effect on gasoline prices wasn't as great, but still there to an extent.

And how about the effect of the American Rescue Plan on logistics in America, in 2021? Poorly targeted extended unemployment benefits and other handouts (e.g. $1400 checks to most Americans) discouraged work. A lot of younger American males, many of whom could have worked in warehouses and driving trucks and the like, decided to sit on their asses at home. And then there was the situation in the California ports. American businesses came up with a list of solutions for the port hang ups, and the Newsome administration basically told them to fuck off.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775951]That's a new one, Crooks and Liars, a Progressive media site dedicated to calling Republicans crooks and liars. Well, Americans need to pull their heads out of the sand. Most of the politicians at the federal level are crooks and liars. The only exceptions in my book are some of the Republicans who Trump made unelectable.

The one substantive point you make in your post, with basis in fact, is about supply chains. I've already addressed this in a previous reply. Supply chains are fucked up partly because of lockdowns in China, which again I presume you and many other Democrats would support if you were Chinese, based on your criticisms of Trump and Republican governors. Then there were the Trump tariffs, which Biden could have remedied with the stroke of a pen. Instead he piled more restrictions on China, and the result is wholesale re-construction of supply chains to avoid Chinese production.

Also there's the war in Ukraine / Russia, which sent fuel prices up, re-routed Russian oil, gas and coal to new markets, and caused grain prices to go up and grain supply to go down. You and I may dislike Trump, but my guess is none of this would have happened if he'd been re-elected. Furthermore, Democrats' existential threats to the fossil fuels industry in the USA (banning drilling on federal leases, banning fracking, going too fast to net "0" carbon emissions) definitely increased the cost of electricity and natural gas used for heating and industrial applications in the U.S. And made it more difficult for USA LNG to serve as a partial replacement for Russian gas supplies to Europe. The effect on gasoline prices wasn't as great, but still there to an extent.

And how about the effect of the American Rescue Plan on logistics in America, in 2021? Poorly targeted extended unemployment benefits and other handouts (e.g. $1400 checks to most Americans) discouraged work. A lot of younger American males, many of whom could have worked in warehouses and driving trucks and the like, decided to sit on their asses at home. And then there was the situation in the California ports. American businesses came up with a list of solutions for the port hang ups, and the Newsome administration basically told them to fuck off.[/QUOTE]I was so looking forward to your explanation for why and how all those global manufacturers, supply-chains, shipping and delivery firms would magically put Trillions into staffing up, cranking up factories, producing abundant supplies of goods and products and be poised to fill orders, ship and deliver ASAP in the wake of Trump's Pandemic's unprecedented 2-tear economic coma and millions upon millions of jobs wiped out long BEFORE there was overwhelming demand from customers with MONEY in their pockets ready to be spent so as to, you know, make sure even the first customers out of the gate would not be inconvenienced by a pesky low supply-high demand rate of inflation.

Alas, you've got nothing for the real problem at hand in the real world as it really exists. As usual. You and Larry Summers.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775948]Hi Tooms, This sounds like something that might come from the pen of a conspiracy theorist, like a QAnon adherent, instead of one of our venerable left-of-center Board Members. It might make a good plot for a movie. A young Harrison Ford is a scientist who is planted within the Chinese CDC. He brilliantly and presciently persuades the Chinese authorities that the world is on the verge of a pandemic and somehow they stop the spread.

But come on. We're not living in the world of Deng Xiaopeng and Jimmy Carter. We're living in the world of Ji Xin Ping, and both American political parties want to punish China economically and the Democrats want to make Ji a pariah. Chinese authorities covered up the pandemic, and persecuted doctors and other citizens who tried to publicize what was happening in Wuhan. Millions of Chinese, a number of whom were infected with COVID, were flying all over China and the rest of the world up through the Lunar New Year (late January, 2020). The cat was out of the bag. COVID mostly came to the USA via travelers from Europe, not China.

The World Health Organization wasn't in a position to make a difference, let alone the USA CDC.[/QUOTE][URL]https://news.yahoo.com/bob-woodward-stunned-trump-told-091902598.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]Talking to Woodward on March 19, 2020, Trump said Barron, then 13, asked what was going on and he answered: I said, it came out of China, Barron. Pure and simple. It came out of China. And it shouldve been stopped. [b]And to be honest with you, Barron, they shouldve let it be known it was a problem two months earlier ... the world wouldnt have a problem. We could have stopped it easily.[/b][/QUOTE][B]Trump says China should have told us about coronavirus. He removed the official meant to do that.
A US epidemiologist was embedded with the Chinese CDC. The Trump administration discontinued the position.
March 23, 2020[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/23/21190713/coronavirus-trump-china-cdc-embed-quick[/URL]

[QUOTE]The Trump administration told the United States embed at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the position would be defunded, causing her to leave her post in July 2019, according to a report from Reuterss Marisa Taylor. The embed helped train Chinese public health experts and served in part as a liaison between Chinese officials and their counterparts in the US.

With the administration planning to discontinue the role, [b]the embed return to the US about five months before China began to see its first Covid-19 cases. Under normal circumstances, the embed likely would have passed information about the novel virus to US officials. Instead, Chinese officials were able for weeks to conceal the virus and the threat it posed, leading to a delay in the worlds response to what was then a matter of great concern and is now a pandemic.[/b]
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776052]I was so looking forward to your explanation for why and how all those global manufacturers, supply-chains, shipping and delivery firms would magically put Trillions into staffing up, cranking up factories, producing abundant supplies of goods and products and be poised to fill orders, ship and deliver ASAP in the wake of Trump's Pandemic's unprecedented 2-tear economic coma and millions upon millions of jobs wiped out long BEFORE there was overwhelming demand from customers with MONEY in their pockets ready to be spent so as to, you know, make sure even the first customers out of the gate would not be inconvenienced by a pesky low supply-high demand rate of inflation.

Alas, you've got nothing for the real problem at hand in the real world as it really exists. As usual. You and Larry Summers.[/QUOTE]You're wrong about demand from consumers with money in their pockets. By the fall of 2020, retail sales, adjusted for inflation, were at all time highs.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSXFS[/URL]

And unit auto sales were close to pre-pandemic levels.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTALSA[/URL]

Look at the 5 year series.

Thanks for putting me in the same category as Larry Summers. That's very kind, but I don't know jack about macroeconomics compared to him.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2776135]You're wrong about demand from consumers with money in their pockets. By the fall of 2020, retail sales, adjusted for inflation, were at all time highs.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSXFS[/URL]

And unit auto sales were close to pre-pandemic levels.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTALSA[/URL]

Look at the 5 year series.

Thanks for putting me in the same category as Larry Summers. That's very kind, but I don't know jack about macroeconomics compared to him.[/QUOTE]Then I guess everyone on the planet was wrong about the collapse of global supply-chains by the end if 2020 and into 2021 and the suppliers were just faking it. Proven by your USA Domestic auto sales charts.

Oh wait. Trump was already sending stimulus checks in 2020 and maybe that triggered some auto sales. Gee, I wonder why that wasn't enough to set worldwide economies up and get global supply-chains moving again. Yeah, they were just faking it.

Well, it looks likes Trump's 2020 stimulus checks and the USA domestic auto sales weren't enough economic stimulation to get global supply-chains back up and moving all that much after all. If anything, America might have done more to get those chains filling inventories even faster on all retail markets.

[B]Retailers: Inventories to Sales Ratio:[/B]

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RETAILIRSA[/URL]

Shhh. Don't tell Larry Summers the 2021 stimulus probably should have been bigger.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775946]Hi Elvis,

Like I mentioned to JustTK a couple of times, we're arguing about history. Now practically all unvaccinated Americans have some immunity from severe COVID infection by virtue of being infected.

I never said the vaccine and boosters provided good protection from infection with Omicron variants. Rather, they provided good protection from severe disease, meaning hospitalization and death, in particular for older and high risk people.

This chart is enlightening, which shows death rate by vaccination status, for Americans over 50, from April 2, 2022 to September 3, 2022, when Omicron has predominated.[/QUOTE]Tiny, that is not placebo controlled comparisons. People who got vaccinated by and large are healthier than people who did not.

And when you state percent reduction, that is a meme that helps whatever intervention you want. It sounds good but is almost meaningless. I think omicron has a less than 1% hospitalization rate and the official death rate is really close to one in a thousand but in reality it is probably even lower than that. And if it the vaccine does anything, it is on the basis of the tank style immune system that destroys both good and bad tissue which means it is not free from side effects. And it is not always cut and dry if someone was admitted to a hospital with a condition caused by Covid or if Covid was just along for the ride.

When the gold standard trial was designed and a true apples to apples comparison was made, there were more people who died in the vaccine group: [URL]https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/no-all-cause-mortality-benefit-in-pfizers-clinical-trial-for-mrna-vaccine-why-6d89b1de0c8d[/URL].

It is BS then for people to claim vaccines prevent death when the best evidence shows they do not. The only thing the vaccines were scientifically proven to do was to prevent a person from catching one strain of Covid that no longer is around.

I do not know if you are a South Park fan Tiny, but here is their explanation of how the virus spead: [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNMRD9nCASw[/URL].

It is hilarious but the sad part is that it is more believable than the idiotic explanation given by our government leaders.

Of course, the virus came from a lab, and China took down all the info it had about the virus down of his web sites. And China was actively feeding the USA and other nations disinformation on how bad the virus really was. No USA rep would have been able to do squat in China.

The other part that gets me is we have a bat biting a pangolin and the pangolin runs a thousand miles to Wuhan and somehow gets into the wet market there. No other animals were found to have Covid then but post pandemic we now know of other animals that have Covid. [URL]https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html[/URL].

So hang with me for a second. The government says it did not cause Covid, a pangolin and bat did. And even though Covid started via animal transmission, we think locking down people and only people will cure Covid. We do not need to lock down animals (even bats and pangolins) to cure Covid. What gets me is how convoluted you have to get to buy this government is good BS, but you have guys like Tooms eating it up.

To him, the virus was not created by government. Government lockdowns worked and would have worked even better if more Republicans would have complied, and the reason the Covid epidemic is over is because of vaccines.

In reality, the pandemic is mostly over because the virus mutated into a less virulent form like most viruses do, which is what Trump correctly said would happen, and the government interventions ranged from helping a bit to doing nothing to causing great harm. All in all, government intervention was a huge negative. It is just if you are beaten over the head with a news story day after day, people want to think you can do something about it.

And with Paxlovid, there is often a rebound effect with it. You get better and then sick again. This happened to both Fauci and Biden when they took the drug.

But yeah, if you are under 65, there is no reason to take the drug. There is no benefit and a risk of side effects, none appear too severe as of yet but you never know.

Hmmm, Trump lied to his son, Baron. Does that mean that.

(a) Trump is a compulsive liar, or.

(b) Trump believes his own bull shit.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776129][URL]https://news.yahoo.com/bob-woodward-stunned-trump-told-091902598.html[/URL][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774341]
Trump's a liar, everybody knows that. And a Chinaphobe. If he did indeed say that there would have been no pandemic if we'd had 2 months more notice, why would you believe him?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776129][B]Trump says China should have told us about coronavirus. He removed the official meant to do that.
A US epidemiologist was embedded with the Chinese CDC. The Trump administration discontinued the position.
March 23, 2020[/B]

[URL]https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/23/21190713/coronavirus-trump-china-cdc-embed-quick[/URL][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2775948]We're not living in the world of Deng Xiaopeng and Jimmy Carter. We're living in the world of Ji Xin Ping, and both American political parties want to punish China economically and the Democrats want to make Ji a pariah. Chinese authorities covered up the pandemic, and persecuted doctors and other citizens who tried to publicize what was happening in Wuhan. Millions of Chinese, a number of whom were infected with COVID, were flying all over China and the rest of the world up through the Lunar New Year (late January, 2020). The cat was out of the bag. COVID mostly came to the USA via travelers from Europe, not China.

The World Health Organization wasn't in a position to make a difference, let alone the USA CDC.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774341]During the very early stage pandemic, the CCP was lying to the local government officials and the people in Wuhan, and persecuting doctors who were attempting to warn the public. What makes you think they would have done jack to allow the CDC to better understand what was going on? There were flights from Wuhan to Europe and the USA all the way up until January 23. By that time COVID was in Europe and there was no way to stop it from developing into a pandemic.

Biden criticized Trump for xenophobia the day after Trump instituted a ban on travel from China.

[URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yes-biden-called-trumps-travel-restrictions-xenophobic/[/URL][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2776236]Hmmm, Trump lied to his son, Baron. Does that mean that.

(a) Trump is a compulsive liar, or.

(b) Trump believes his own bull shit.[/QUOTE]Trump told Woodward he told Barron a 2 month heads up would have been enough to prevent the spread in China from becoming Trump's Pandemic.

He told the world his intel was that "three or four months" could have done it:

[URL]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-coronavirus-response-china-early-outbreak-pandemic-covid-19-a9416406.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]"All of the people the talent that we have would have loved to have had three or four months of additional time, Mr Trump said at the White House. They didnt have that time. They read about it in the newspapers like everybody else.

He added: China was very secretive. Very, very secretive. And thats unfortunate.[/QUOTE]Yeah, China is always secretive. That's why we embeded science officials in their labs to guide, monitor and issue effective warnings to the world of potential Pandemics early enough to prevent them from emerging in the first place.

You know, the ones Trump inexplicably removed from those China labs 5 months earlier. Guess he hadn't heard about that China "secrecy" thingy by then.

Notice he apparently never told anyone a "5 month" heads up would have done it, carefully avoiding the actual amount if time his disastrous decision involved. Perhaps for fear that a review of what was happening over there "5 months" earlier would draw direct attention to his removing the agents whose job it was to do exactly that while looking back just "2 months" or "three or four months" would not show anyone was there to monitor and issue those warnings anyway. Because he had removed them 5 months earlier.

That is a form of misdirection, a sign that he is aware of his responsibility in our not getting the heads up we needed to prevent Trump's Pandemic. And I would say that is strong evidence that he does not believe his own lies. He is knowingly trying to con everyone with his lies, not merely blathering stuff he believes to be true but isn't true.

Same as he did about everything significant and insignificant, from his prowess as a businessman, the size of his inauguration crowd, the state of the economy he inherited from Obama, the state of it as the result of his stewardship, the virulence and mode of spread of coronavirus, whether or when it will go away without a vaccine, who won the 2022 presidential election, Putin's intel vs America's intel, Trump University, Trump's Election Defense Fund, etc.

If he actually believed any of the lies and nonsense he blathered all these years then he is the dumbest fucker on two feet. And whether having millions and millions of Americans willing and eager to support as so-called president and vote for the dumbest fucker on two feet is worse or better than their supporting and voting for the most blatantly obvious compulsive liar and con man on two feet is an interesting but somewhat unimportant question.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776194]Then I guess everyone on the planet was wrong about the collapse of global supply-chains by the end if 2020 and into 2021 and the suppliers were just faking it. Proven by your USA Domestic auto sales charts.

Oh wait. Trump was already sending stimulus checks in 2020 and maybe that triggered some auto sales. Gee, I wonder why that wasn't enough to set worldwide economies up and get global supply-chains moving again. Yeah, they were just faking it.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776201]Well, it looks likes Trump's 2020 stimulus checks and the USA domestic auto sales weren't enough economic stimulation to get global supply-chains back up and moving all that much after all. If anything, America might have done more to get those chains filling inventories even faster on all retail markets.

[B]Retailers: Inventories to Sales Ratio:[/B]

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RETAILIRSA[/URL]

Shhh. Don't tell Larry Summers the 2021 stimulus probably should have been bigger.[/QUOTE]I've agreed with you, extensively, in two posts, that supply chain glitches were partly responsible for inflation. Other causes were too much fiscal stimulus (Biden's American Rescue Plan - the ARP - in particular), and a Fed that was asleep at the wheel. After the Democrats unwisely decided to throw gasoline on the fire in 2021 with the ARP and inflation went up, the Fed should have started raising interest rates, but it didn't.

About the inventories to sales ratio, yes, you see a big drop when those $1400 per person stimulus checks hit. The IRS started mailing out the checks on March 12. And the ratio falls from 1.24 in February to 1.10 in March. Why did that happen? Because people spent that Biden money. Retail Sales, SEASONALLY ADJUSTED*, went from $503 billion in February, 2021 to $558 billion in March! One of your fellow Democrats on another hooker board happily remarked that several of his buddies had gone out and bought big screen TV's with their Biden Money.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSXFS[/URL]

I never said that excess demand from excessive fiscal stimulus depleted inventories and partly caused supply chain glitches. But now that you bring it up, it makes a lot of sense. Yes, I think we can blame the ARP for creating too much demand, and the supply chain just couldn't keep up with it!



*They adjust for February just having 28 days.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776221]Tiny, that is not placebo controlled comparisons. People who got vaccinated by and large are healthier than people who did not.[/QUOTE]The elderly got vaccinated in larger percentages than younger people. And presumably so did individuals that were at higher risk as a result of diabetes, heart disease, etc. However, if you segment into age groups, I think you'd be right Elvis. And that's the correct way to look at the numbers, comparing death and hospitalization rates for people with similar ages.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776221] I think omicron has a less than 1% hospitalization rate and the official death rate is really close to one in a thousand but in reality it is probably even lower than that. And if it the vaccine does anything, it is on the basis of the tank style immune system that destroys both good and bad tissue which means it is not free from side effects. And it is not always cut and dry if someone was admitted to a hospital with a condition caused by Covid or if Covid was just along for the ride.[/QUOTE]I think your percentages are in the ballpark. However, hospitalization and death rates are a couple of orders of magnitude higher in older and high risk people compared to the young and healthy. For them COVID is still a significant concern. And if everyone in the USA gets Omicron and one in a thousand die, that's 300,000 people. I'm not sure about the tank style immune system analogy. The way I think about it is you can get your immunity from infection or you can get it from vaccinations. And it's easier and safer getting it from the vaccinations.

Again, I'm thinking from the perspective of someone who's older or higher risk. If you're 30 years old, I think your analogy makes more sense.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776221]When the gold standard trial was designed and a true apples to apples comparison was made, there were more people who died in the vaccine group: [URL]https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/no-all-cause-mortality-benefit-in-pfizers-clinical-trial-for-mrna-vaccine-why-6d89b1de0c8d[/URL].[/QUOTE]Yeah, 40,000 people sounds like a lot. The writer admits he knows about as much about statistics as I do, meaning not very much. Intuitively, 21 deaths from all causes in the mRNA group and 17 in the placebo group doesn't sound like a significant difference to me. In 2020, around 10% of deaths in the USA were attributed to COVID. So maybe you'd expect about 2 more deaths in the placebo group (10% of 19), and you actually had 4 more in the mRNA group. I believe this is statistically insignificant. I'd put a lot more stock in larger studies that show much higher COVID death and hospitalization rates in the unvaccinated. Although, admittedly, unlike the Pfizer trial, IF YOU SEGMENT BY AGE GROUPS, you may have the handicap you mentioned, that perhaps the vaccinated were healthier to begin with.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776221]I do not know if you are a South Park fan Tiny, but here is their explanation of how the virus spead: [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNMRD9nCASw[/URL].[/QUOTE]I'm a huge fan. I think the Mickey Mouse / China episode Randy mentions might be my favorite.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776221]Of course, the virus came from a lab, and China took down all the info it had about the virus down of his web sites. And China was actively feeding the USA and other nations disinformation on how bad the virus really was. No USA rep would have been able to do squat in China.

The other part that gets me is we have a bat biting a pangolin and the pangolin runs a thousand miles to Wuhan and somehow gets into the wet market there. No other animals were found to have Covid then but post pandemic we now know of other animals that have Covid. [URL]https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html[/URL].

So hang with me for a second. The government says it did not cause Covid, a pangolin and bat did. And even though Covid started via animal transmission, we think locking down people and only people will cure Covid. We do not need to lock down animals (even bats and pangolins) to cure Covid. What gets me is how convoluted you have to get to buy this government is good BS, but you have guys like Tooms eating it up.[/QUOTE]I'm an agnostic on natural vs. Lab origin. It's awfully suspicious that the disease arose in Wuhan. But there have been bat cornaviruses obtained in the wild that were much closer genetically to COVID 19 than SARS. I'm reading that SARS is closer to the original COVID 19 coronavirus than the original virus is to some recent Omicron variants. Anyway, this is above my paygrade. There are some very smart people on both sides of the debate who do nothing except study viruses. The original consensus was natural origin, but the majority may agree with you now. Robert Redfield does anyway.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776221]To him, the virus was not created by government. Government lockdowns worked and would have worked even better if more Republicans would have complied, and the reason the Covid epidemic is over is because of vaccines.[/QUOTE]There was no magic solution. Look at what's happening in China today. We muddled through, like everyone else. Earlier on I was very critical of Trump. But looking back, I don't know how much of a difference he really could have made. He did push Operation Warp Speed, and helped get FDA approvals in record time. Lockdowns suck. If you can strap on N95 or KN95 masks and get on with business, or stay home if you're sick, that might have been the best approach. But it's easier said than done.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776221]In reality, the pandemic is mostly over because the virus mutated into a less virulent form like most viruses do, [/QUOTE]And also because everyone now has at least some immunity from previous infection and vaccination.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776221]And with Paxlovid, there is often a rebound effect with it. You get better and then sick again. This happened to both Fauci and Biden when they took the drug.

But yeah, if you are under 65, there is no reason to take the drug. There is no benefit and a risk of side effects, none appear too severe as of yet but you never know.[/QUOTE]I'm under 65 and I'd take it, but then like I mentioned before I'm a big fan of drugs and vaccines, in general.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2776314]I've agreed with you, extensively, in two posts, that supply chain glitches were partly responsible for inflation. Other causes were too much fiscal stimulus (Biden's American Rescue Plan - the ARP - in particular), and a Fed that was asleep at the wheel. After the Democrats unwisely decided to throw gasoline on the fire in 2021 with the ARP and inflation went up, the Fed should have started raising interest rates, but it didn't.

About the inventories to sales ratio, yes, you see a big drop when those $1400 per person stimulus checks hit. The IRS started mailing out the checks on March 12. And the ratio falls from 1.24 in February to 1.10 in March. Why did that happen? Because people spent that Biden money. Retail Sales, SEASONALLY ADJUSTED, went from $503 billion in February, 2021 to $558 billion in March! One of your fellow Democrats on another hooker board happily remarked that several of his buddies had gone out and bought big screen TV's with their Biden Money.

[URL]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSXFS[/URL]

I never said that excess demand from excessive fiscal stimulus depleted inventories and partly caused supply chain glitches. But now that you bring it up, it makes a lot of sense. Yes, I think we can partly blame the ARP for creating too much demand, and the supply chain just couldn't keep up with it![/QUOTE]Global supply-chains snapped out of it and reopened, goods and products began to be manufactured again, shipping and deliveries were made. It wasn't just the prospect of a couple of stimulus check shots in the arm. That would not have been enough to produce the seismic change necessary to deal with this unprecedented Great Repub Downturn. No, they would need to know it was overwhelming.

And as any real world political historian knew, it would only be about 2021, as big and as early as possible, and some of 2022 before the campaigns began. That's it.

All with only 1 Senate seat buffer between getting ANYTHING done and getting NOTHING done for every minute of every hour and every day from January 20,2021 until today.

Otherwise, you, Larry and I could sit around with our Thoughts and Prayers waiting for Zimbabwe to step up to the plate and provide enough assurance to those global supply-chains to snap out of it and get moving strong enough to start supplying the globe again.

Thanks, Joe.

It worked so well that now, less than 2 years after the Biden stimulus was put into the system and with NO more economic stimulus expected to emanate from the House, as predicted, there is a moderate surplus of goods and products in inventories. That is exactly where any thinking economist would have hoped we would be by now but might not have believed was possible at the end of 2020.

What do you suppose that will do to prices? Suppliers hate it but aren't going to shut down again in protest. They can't. There is still abundantly more economic stimulus in the form of Infrastructure activity on the way.

So the pendulum swung back a bit too far. No biggie. It swung. And in a direction favoring the consumer this time. It is now in position to settle into a normal range.

Thanks, Joe.

Dem Demand-Side economics vs Repub Supply-Side economics.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2776236]Hmmm, Trump lied to his son, Baron. Does that mean that.

(a) Trump is a compulsive liar, or.

(b) Trump believes his own bull shit.[/QUOTE]You have proposed phrasing as an [B]or[/B] and, in truth, the correct phrasing should have been [B]and[/B]. In other words: "(a) Trump is a compulsive liar, [B]and[/B] (b) Trump believes his own bull shit. "

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776272]Trump told Woodward he told Barron a 2 month heads up would have been enough to prevent the spread in China from becoming Trump's Pandemic.

He told the world his intel was that "three or four months" could have done it:

[URL]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-coronavirus-response-china-early-outbreak-pandemic-covid-19-a9416406.html[/URL]

Yeah, China is always secretive. That's why we embeded science officials in their labs to guide, monitor and issue effective warnings to the world of potential Pandemics early enough to prevent them from emerging in the first place.

You know, the ones Trump inexplicably removed from those China labs 5 months earlier. Guess he hadn't heard about that China "secrecy" thingy by then.

Notice he apparently never told anyone a "5 month" heads up would have done it, carefully avoiding the actual amount if time his disastrous decision involved. Perhaps for fear that a review of what was happening over there "5 months" earlier would draw direct attention to his removing the agents whose job it was to do exactly that while looking back just "2 months" or "three or four months" would not show anyone was there to monitor and issue those warnings anyway. Because he had removed them 5 months earlier.

That is a form of misdirection, a sign that he is aware of his responsibility in our not getting the heads up we needed to prevent Trump's Pandemic. And I would say that is strong evidence that he does not believe his own lies. He is knowingly trying to con everyone with his lies, not merely blathering stuff he believes to be true but isn't true.[/QUOTE]Again, this sounds like the Democratic equivalent of a QAnon conspiracy theory to me.

When I Google "How many lives did the Trump Vaccines save" I get articles and papers that estimate from 2 to 3 million in the USA, and 20 million worldwide! And that's just during the first year or two after the vaccines became available! President Trump himself said the Trump Vaccines may save up to 100 million lives!

Thank You President Trump! And Thank You Moderna, BioNTech and Pfizer!

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776333]Global supply-chains snapped out of it and reopened, goods and products began to be manufactured again, shipping and deliveries were made. It wasn't just the prospect of a couple of stimulus check shots in the arm. That would not have been enough to produce the seismic change necessary to deal with this unprecedented Great Repub Downturn. No, they would need to know it was overwhelming.

And as any real world political historian knew, it would only be about 2021, as big and as early as possible, and some of 2022 before the campaigns began. That's it.

All with only 1 Senate seat buffer between getting ANYTHING done and getting NOTHING done for every minute of every hour and every day from January 20,2021 until today.

Otherwise, you, Larry and I could sit around with our Thoughts and Prayers waiting for Zimbabwe to step up to the plate and provide enough assurance to those global supply-chains to snap out of it and get moving strong enough to start supplying the globe again.

Thanks, Joe.

It worked so well that now, less than 2 years after the Biden stimulus was put into the system and with NO more economic stimulus expected to emanate from the House, as predicted, there is a moderate surplus of goods and products in inventories. That is exactly where any thinking economist would have hoped we would be by now but might not have believed was possible at the end of 2020.

What do you suppose that will do to prices? Suppliers hate it but aren't going to shut down again in protest. They can't. There is still abundantly more economic stimulus in the form of Infrastructure activity on the way.

So the pendulum swung back a bit too far. No biggie. It swung. And in a direction favoring the consumer this time. It is now in position to settle into a normal range.

Thanks, Joe.

Dem Demand-Side economics vs Repub Supply-Side economics.[/QUOTE]In your last couple of posts, you appear to say the massive fiscal stimulus in 2021 was justified so that Democrats would do better in the Mid Terms. That is, Biden and the Democrats were trying to buy elections by giving away free money. Fair enough. Like your evidence that the stimulus depleted inventories, it makes sense.

This is a hoot:

"It worked so well that now, less than 2 years after the Biden stimulus was put into the system and with NO more economic stimulus expected to emanate from the House, as predicted, there is a moderate surplus of goods and products in inventories."

Well, after "it" (the American Rescue Plan or ARP) was passed and $1400 checks were sent out, the Inventories / Sales ratio, from your graph, dropped from 1.24 to 1.10, in one month. And it's only come back to 1.22 since. So apparently we've just gotten back to where we started, before the ARP, in replenishing inventories.

I enjoyed this as well.

"What do you suppose that will do to prices? Suppliers hate it but aren't going to shut down again in protest. They can't. There is still abundantly more economic stimulus in the form of Infrastructure activity on the way."

The reason factories all over the world cut back on production was because they couldn't sell as much as before. Many had to either make cuts or go bankrupt. You initially had lower demand, and also the supply chain disruptions. So you want them to keep churning out products, just let them pile up, when they can't be sold? And go bankrupt? That makes even less sense than the Biden Administration's reasoning that oil and gas companies should ramp up production, to improve the Democrats' prospects for the mid term elections, when the Progressive Democratic platform threatens their very existence.

Interest expense on our massive national debt has increased a lot. Debt held by the public is $24 trillion. At 4% interest, that would be $960 billion per year. Given that Federal Revenues in 2022 were about $4.9 trillion, that's huge. I don't know how we're ever going to pay down significant debt. Biden and Trump and the Democrats apparently didn't think about that when they were passing COVID relief spending amounting to 25% of GDP. Or when the Democrats were passing legislation to add an additional $3 trillion in spending, in addition to the ARP, over the last couple of years.

As to "Democratic Demand Side Economics", Keynes would be rolling over in his grave. He never envisioned continually growing debt as a % of GDP. He favored paying down the debt when times were good, like Larry Summers and Bill Clinton, working with a Republican Congress, did in the late 1990's. The ARP was passed when annualized QoQ GDP growth was 6.3%, and unemployment had declined from 12.90% of the workforce to 6. 2%. Things were on the mend. Yeah, at that point it didn't make sense to start paying down debt. But a $1. 9 trillion, largely untargeted fiscal stimulus, was way over the top. It would have made sense then, and now, to target more aid, for example, in ways that would help poor children. But as Summers has noted, the ARP crowded out those kind of socially beneficial programs.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2776518]Again, this sounds like the Democratic equivalent of a QAnon conspiracy theory to me.[/QUOTE]Yeah, the Dem QAnon theory was that if only anyone but Trump had been in office, we would have been saved, and they have cycled through hundreds of responses of what could have been done and they all turned out to have been duds. Hell, even when more people died under Biden than Trump, it was still the Republicans fault for not complying with interventions we now know never worked.

If you read the Washington Post and NYT, the stupid Qanon theory they were pushing and the here were buying was that being a Republican was the biggest Covid risk factor by far. It was a daily thing with them.

In reality, the worst comorbidity factor in terms of death may have been age, but from what I saw it was diabetes by far. Thing is when you look at blacks and Hispanics in comparison to whites, they have a lot more diabetes and given that they are more likely to be Democrats than whites, I would assume they would be sicker. I did not ask sick people their party affiliation, but I assume it would be true.

I guess my stating the above is not factual but racist. We cannot compare people based on their skin color, but with these douches it is perfectly fine to assign any negative assertion to anyone who votes Republican. With them, just voting Republican regardless of who the candidate is or how qualified he is, means you are a stupid racist and with Tooms, it means you are destroying the economy to boot.

What gets me is these and their bureaucratic brethren really believe they can cure a cold virus and control the climate. And what happens when it is obvious these fail? Well, it is the Republicans fault.

Did you know that it snowed in Miami right before a football game there a week ago? Why does no one mention global warming and climate change with that, but they will not shut up about it when there is a hurricane? These douches do not think there is anything stronger than them.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2776522]In your last couple of posts, you appear to say the massive fiscal stimulus in 2021 was justified so that Democrats would do better in the Mid Terms. That is, Biden and the Democrats were trying to buy elections by giving away free money. Fair enough. Like your evidence that the stimulus depleted inventories, it makes sense.

This is a hoot:

"It worked so well that now, less than 2 years after the Biden stimulus was put into the system and with NO more economic stimulus expected to emanate from the House, as predicted, there is a moderate surplus of goods and products in inventories."

Well, after "it" (the American Rescue Plan or ARP) was passed and $1400 checks were sent out, the Inventories / Sales ratio, from your graph, dropped from 1.24 to 1.10, in one month. And it's only come back to 1.22 since. So apparently we've just gotten back to where we started, before the ARP, in replenishing inventories.

I enjoyed this as well.

"What do you suppose that will do to prices? Suppliers hate it but aren't going to shut down again in protest. They can't. There is still abundantly more economic stimulus in the form of Infrastructure activity on the way."

The reason factories all over the world cut back on production was because they couldn't sell as much as before. Many had to either make cuts or go bankrupt. You initially had lower demand, and also the supply chain disruptions. So you want them to keep churning out products, just let them pile up, when they can't be sold? And go bankrupt? That makes even less sense than the Biden Administration's reasoning that oil and gas companies should ramp up production, to improve the Democrats' prospects for the mid term elections, when the Progressive Democratic platform threatens their very existence.

Interest expense on our massive national debt has increased a lot. Debt held by the public is $24 trillion. At 4% interest, that would be $960 billion per year. Given that Federal Revenues in 2022 were about $4.9 trillion, that's huge. I don't know how we're ever going to pay down significant debt. Biden and Trump and the Democrats apparently didn't think about that when they were passing COVID relief spending amounting to 25% of GDP. Or when the Democrats were passing legislation to add an additional $3 trillion in spending, in addition to the ARP, over the last couple of years.

As to "Democratic Demand Side Economics", Keynes would be rolling over in his grave. He never envisioned continually growing debt as a % of GDP. He favored paying down the debt when times were good, like Larry Summers and Bill Clinton, working with a Republican Congress, did in the late 1990's. The ARP was passed when annualized QoQ GDP growth was 6.3%, and unemployment had declined from 12.90% of the workforce to 6. 2%. Things were on the mend. Yeah, at that point it didn't make sense to start paying down debt. But a $1. 9 trillion, largely untargeted fiscal stimulus, was way over the top. It would have made sense then, and now, to target more aid, for example, in ways that would help poor children. But as Summers has noted, the ARP crowded out those kind of socially beneficial programs.[/QUOTE]Biden and the Dems and any stray Repub who might want to help pull us out of that latest Great Repub Downturn rather than double or triple down on it to make it worse had a single full year to put the legislation on the table and vote. That would be 2021. At least a portion of the following year, 2022, would have all members of the House and a third of the Senate, all Parties, occupied with campaigning for election or re-election and, if history is any guide, more inclined to run on what they already did or did not accomplish legislatively and less inclined to launch into months of negotiating and legislating new business.

And Biden would know what apparently eluded Larry Summers; 2021 was the one full year shot at pulling America and, inevitably, the rest of the world out of the unprecedented Great Repub Trump's Pandemic Economic Paralysis. Period.

Oh, and with a single, one, 1 Senate Seat margin of error hanging over the proceedings from minute one after Biden's inauguration and at least the Pink Tinkle in the House by this very week that, sure enough, we got that will put a complete halt to any meaningful followup legislation for the USA economy.

That was the Real World facing Biden. Not lovely visions scribbled at the point of Larry Summers' pencil.

Now, the rest of us would like a hoot, too.

Please explain how you and Larry knew all that was needed was a pleasantly palettable smaller stimulus legislation to accomplish the goal, that all of the potential downsides, variants and resurgence of Trump's Pandemic was over around the world, which it wasn't, that neither America nor any other major national economy would see any other economic challenge that would ordinarily rear its head over a two year period even without Trump's Pandemic in the mix, like a war somewhere in Europe, etc etc etc and that one smaller stimulus, all you would get with no likely follow ups for years to come, would be fine and dandy and plenty to get "er done?

Thoughts and Prayers? Clairvoyance? A word or too from a Burning Bush?

20-20 hindsight under far more pleasant conditions, thanks, Joe, is fun, isn't it?

[QUOTE][b]Tiny12:[/b]
As to "Democratic Demand Side Economics", Keynes would be rolling over in his grave. He never envisioned continually growing debt as a % of GDP. He favored paying down the debt when times were good, like Larry Summers and Bill Clinton, working with a Republican Congress, did in the late 1990's.[/QUOTE]The only way to see that Keynesian principle applied would be to lift POTUS term limits for Dems only.

Otherwise, the century long pattern will continue of Dems paying down the debt and deficit, producing or headed to budget surpluses, as Clinton and his Dems did in the 1990's despite getting zero Repub votes for the legislation that made that happen and Gingrich shutting down the government multiple times in a failed attempt to destroy that historic Dem economic expansion and thwart any chance of a budget surplus, followed by a Repub who will flush all of it down the shitter as quickly as possible on utterly useless and counterproductive piddling tax cuts for the top income margins at the great expense of everyone else.

Keyenes' other principle was to use those surpluses to fund and carry us over and through particularly tough economic times. In order to eliminate all risk of that principle being abused we might as well pass a No More Repub So-Called Potuses law.

Because in addition to the incoming Repub flushing the Dem surpluses down the shitter, they will most certainly produce their usual particularly tough economic conditions, massive job losses in the millions, whatever new and unprecedented economic and National Security crisis opportunity comes their way that will require significant deficit spending by the following incoming Dem to pull us out of it.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776566]Yeah, the Dem QAnon theory was that if only anyone but Trump had been in office, we would have been saved, and they have cycled through hundreds of responses of what could have been done and they all turned out to have been duds. Hell, even when more people died under Biden than Trump, it was still the Republicans fault for not complying with interventions we now know never worked.

If you read the Washington Post and NYT, the stupid Qanon theory they were pushing and the here were buying was that being a Republican was the biggest Covid risk factor by far. It was a daily thing with them.

In reality, the worst comorbidity factor in terms of death may have been age, but from what I saw it was diabetes by far. Thing is when you look at blacks and Hispanics in comparison to whites, they have a lot more diabetes and given that they are more likely to be Democrats than whites, I would assume they would be sicker. I did not ask sick people their party affiliation, but I assume it would be true.

I guess my stating the above is not factual but racist. We cannot compare people based on their skin color, but with these douches it is perfectly fine to assign any negative assertion to anyone who votes Republican. With them, just voting Republican regardless of who the candidate is or how qualified he is, means you are a stupid racist and with Tooms, it means you are destroying the economy to boot.

What gets me is these and their bureaucratic brethren really believe they can cure a cold virus and control the climate. And what happens when it is obvious these fail? Well, it is the Republicans fault.

Did you know that it snowed in Miami right before a football game there a week ago? Why does no one mention global warming and climate change with that, but they will not shut up about it when there is a hurricane? These douches do not think there is anything stronger than them.[/QUOTE]Hey Elvis, I think a lot of it is a need by many Democrats to feel they are superior to others, morally and otherwise. And their desire to impose their values on others.

At this point in time, is there any reason to demand that others get vaccinated or wear masks? No. Those of us who've bought into the vaccine story, including me, are free to get injections to our hearts content, and wear masks whenever we went. I may be paranoid as hell, but I feel very well protected walking through an airport with my KN95 mask. Also the fact that, as you correctly say, the infection fatality ratio for COVID is now similar to the flu is comforting.

The other topic you brought up, climate, is another great illustration. So why do Democrats, in places like New York, want to take away our jobs in oil and gas here in Texas? What difference would it make to total worldwide carbon emissions if you shut down all the oil and gas wells in the USA? Well it would amount to diddly squat. And instead of producing oil and gas here in the USA, we'd be importing it from Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc. The blue state Democrats would apparently prefer that to keeping the jobs and production here in the USA. Why? Well, again, it gives them a sanctimonious pride. They think they're saving the world. And that of course is mierda. About 15% of worldwide CO2 emissions come from the USA, and that number will become lower and lower in future years.

The racist thing as you say is a good example too.

All of this has kind of replaced religion. If you were a Baptist or member of the Church of Christ here in Texas, you used to be able to believe you were godly and superior and destined for heaven. And the rest of the world were immoral heathens headed for a fiery inferno. Well if you can unjustly paint a group of Americans as racists who are killing others by infecting them with COVID and destroying the planet by not giving LIP SERVICE to achieving "0" net carbon emissions, then you too can achieve that state of sanctimonious nirvana.

I don't mean to apply the preceding to esteemed fellow board members. While it might not always be apparent from what I write, I actually believe they're smarter and more enlightened than your average blue state Democrat. This is obvious to me from participating in a political forum on another hooker board, and listening to and reading the main stream media. Perhaps their relative open mindedness comes from traveling outside of the USA and being exposed to other cultures. My disagreements with them here have chiefly been over economic issues. Although if you mention the name Bjorn Lomborg, with respect to climate, they do seem to go into tizzy fits.

I could paint a similar picture of some of our Republican brethren, who want to impose their social values on others. But I'll leave that for another post.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2776566]Yeah, the Dem QAnon theory was that if only anyone but Trump had been in office, we would have been saved, and they have cycled through hundreds of responses of what could have been done and they all turned out to have been duds. Hell, even when more people died under Biden than Trump, it was still the Republicans fault for not complying with interventions we now know never worked.

If you read the Washington Post and NYT, the stupid Qanon theory they were pushing and the here were buying was that being a Republican was the biggest Covid risk factor by far. It was a daily thing with them.

In reality, the worst comorbidity factor in terms of death may have been age, but from what I saw it was diabetes by far. Thing is when you look at blacks and Hispanics in comparison to whites, they have a lot more diabetes and given that they are more likely to be Democrats than whites, I would assume they would be sicker. I did not ask sick people their party affiliation, but I assume it would be true..[/QUOTE]First off, nobody has said that had anybody but Donnie the Dumbass been in office "we would have been saved". What we have said, and said consistently, is that Donnie the Dumbass fucked up the US response to COVID. Nobody by Donnie the Dumbass said that COVID would go away with warmer weather, without a vaccine, "we have it under control" etc. Nobody but Donnie the Dumbass said that injecting yourself with disinfectant or shoving a lightbulb up your rectum would cure COVID. Nobody but Donnie the Dumbass made the decision to pull our infectious disease experts out of China before COVID. Nobody but Donnie the Dumbass consistently lied to the American public and downplayed the seriousness of COVID while privately admitting that COVID was serious. What is true, though, about Repub douches is that they will stick up for Donnie the Dumbass even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are wrong.

Your stating that diabetes was, by far, the leading comorbidity death factor is incorrect. At least one study has said that it was hypertension. [URL]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0213911121002880[/URL] Another study said that the leading comorbidity death factor was lung cancer [URL]https://www.ajmc.com/view/contributor-links-between-covid-19-comorbidities-mortality-detailed-in-fair-health-study[/URL] Do people of color have higher comorbidities than whites? Yes. Do they also work in jobs that were considered "essential" during COVID? Also a yes. So, early COVID mortality rates would naturally be predisposed toward POC. However, when looking at the latest data, white folks have "caught up" and now are almost equal in terms of per-capita deaths. [URL]https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race[/URL].

And WAPO and the NYT articles are based on fact. [URL]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-republican-counties-have-higher-death-rates-than-those-in-democratic-counties/[/URL] and [URL]https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/once-covid-vaccines-were-introduced-more-republicans-died-than-democrats[/URL] Republican-leaning counties have higher COVID death rates than Democratic-leaning ones as well as higher overall death rates. You can spin this any way you like and you undoubtedly will.

Are you Donnie the Dumbass in disguise? Or just another who doesn't know the difference between weather and climate. Given your Miami comment, my assumption is the latter.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776584]Please explain how you and Larry knew all that was needed was a pleasantly palettable smaller stimulus legislation to accomplish the goal, that all of the potential downsides, variants and resurgence of Trump's Pandemic was over around the world, which it wasn't, that neither America nor any other major national economy would see any other economic challenge that would ordinarily rear its head over a two year period even without Trump's Pandemic in the mix, like a war somewhere in Europe, etc etc etc and that one smaller stimulus, all you would get with no likely follow ups for years to come, would be fine and dandy and plenty to get "er done?

Thoughts and Prayers? Clairvoyance? A word or too from a Burning Bush?

20-20 hindsight under far more pleasant conditions, thanks, Joe, is fun, isn't it?[/QUOTE]Before it largely died because of too much moderation, I posted in the political forum on another hooker board. Back in December, 2020, we were discussing Summers' view on the $2,000 stimulus checks that Trump and Pelosi were proposing to send out. (McConnell and Senate Republicans managed to reduce the checks to $600, but Biden dished out an additional $1400 in March, 2021.) Summers said the $2000 checks would be "a pretty serious mistake" that could overheat the economy. I weighed in on Summers' side and followed what Summers was saying closely for the next few months. In April, 2021, I started a thread there, "How are we going to pay for all this shit?" about Biden's American Rescue Plan (ARP) and other spending proposals. An ex hedge fund manager and an economist posted extensively in the thread. (Aside: If they posted here there would be a chance they could change even your mind about this -- they're two smart SOB's.) It was easy to see what was coming. The economy was already recovering nicely when the Democrats passed the ARP -- see my previous post. But Biden et al dumped additional stimulus spending of about 10% of GDP, on top of the 15% that had already been allocated during the Trump administration. Given that YoY GDP was down 8.4% at its worst, in the quarter ended 6/30/2020, and we were pumping in fiscal stimulus of 25% of GDP, the writing was on the wall.

I'll let Larry tell the story in his own words. This is from an interview with Stephanie Flanders (Stephanomics podcast).

"Stephanie, you know, I've been right this year. But there have been plenty of years when I've been wrong. I did what I thought was a straightforward analysis of the situation. I looked at how short incomes were of trend. And I saw that they were about $25 billion or $30 billion short of trend each month. And that that number was declining. And then I saw that the proposed transfer payments and other stimulus represented close to $200 billion a month. And so I thought if you were filling a $30 billion hole with $200 billion of spending, there was likely to be some overflow and that overflow would translate into inflation. I did the same calculation essentially, looking at GDP, and I saw a 2% or 3% GDP gap, met with about 15% of stimulus."

While we're on the topic of Summers, here's what he has to say in the same interview, about the workingman losing ground because of inflation.

"this period of high inflation has coincided with more rapid, real wage reduction than we had seen previously. So for the majority of workers it's working out badly so far, not working out well."

There's a great spread on Italy in the Economist. Reading it, I can't help but think we'd go to where they are now if we lived in your dream world. A world where Republican Congressmen, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema dropped dead, so that policy was set solely by Joe Biden and Democratic Congressmen. Public debt as a % of GDP in Italy is 150%. (Ours is currently 100%.) Government expenditures as a % of GDP are around 55%. The country has a poor business climate, with "shockingly low" foreign direct investment and R&D expenditures. The government is way too big. As a result GDP per capita has hardly increased since 2000, the worst performance in the OECD and over the long term, productivity has declined. GDP per capita is 32% lower than the USA. Ironically, the Economist, a left of center publication, speculates that Italy needs someone like Margaret Thatcher to come in and clean up the mess.

What would the Democrats' solution be, left to their own devices, faced with a situation like Italy? Certainly it wouldn't be bringing in a leader like Thatcher, like what the Economist suggests. Rather,

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2776596]Otherwise, the century long pattern will continue of Dems paying down the debt and deficit, producing or headed to budget surpluses, as Clinton and his Dems did in the 1990's despite getting zero Repub votes for the legislation that made that happen and Gingrich shutting down the government multiple times in a failed attempt to destroy that historic Dem economic expansion and thwart any chance of a budget surplus, [b] followed by a Repub who will flush all of it down the shitter as quickly as possible on utterly useless and counterproductive piddling tax cuts for the top income margins at the great expense of everyone else.[/b][/QUOTE]Why, raise taxes on the rich, of course! No matter that the USA already has the most progressive tax system in the developed world. No matter than the maximum tax rate in your native California is 54.1%. No matter that if you took 100% of the after tax income from every American who makes more than $500,000 a year, you'd only be able to pay for 1/2 of the cost of universal health care. Or alternately you could just take 50% more of their current after tax income then we currently do, and pay the current interest on the national debt.

Tax the rich! That's the solution. You see, most national Democratic Politicians, at their core are thieves. Mafia types that want to steal from those Americans who busted their asses to get ahead.

Since you're really into links to back up commentary, here are some.

References:

[URL]https://www.businessinsider.com/2000-stimulus-checks-a-serious-mistake-biden-ally-larry-summers-2020-12?amp#referrer=https%3 A%2 F%2 Fwww.google.com[/URL]
[URL]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-23/transcript-larry-summers-gets-his-told-you-so-moment-on-inflation#xj4 y7[/URL]
[URL]https://www.economist.com/special-report/2022/12/05/italys-new-government-needs-to-make-deep-economic-reforms[/URL]
[URL]https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-individual-statistical-tables-by-size-of-adjusted-gross-income[/URL]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2776768]And WAPO and the NYT articles are based on fact. [URL]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-republican-counties-have-higher-death-rates-than-those-in-democratic-counties/[/URL] and [URL]https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/once-covid-vaccines-were-introduced-more-republicans-died-than-democrats[/URL] Republican-leaning counties have higher COVID death rates than Democratic-leaning ones as well as higher overall death rates. You can spin this any way you like and you undoubtedly will.[/QUOTE]It would be interesting to see how the economies of the red and blue counties compared since COVID started. I'd expect the red counties did better.

[QUOTE=Tiny 12;2776644]Hey Elvis, I think a lot of it is a need by many Democrats to feel they are superior to others, morally and otherwise. And their desire to impose their values on others. ... [/QUOTE]

Hey, how wrong you are! It is more than likely quite the opposite. I think, it is the newly minted QAnon/Repubs/MAGA tribe, that have a persistent sense of inadequacy and a debilitating inferiority complex, which compels them to feel a constant need to exert "their power" over others.

And a moral code that often manifests itself, as hate, violence and cruelty, towards others that don't share their MAGA ideology.

On the other hand, as an aside, I'm enjoying the [b]inadequate, incompetent[/b] and [b]dysfunctional[/b] spectacle that is the QAnon/Repub House Caucus. So not all is lost, the QAnon/Repubs can be quite entertaining.

So popcorn, pizza, wine, beer and a buck of chicken at the ready...it is turning out to be, a "blockbuster" show, one we haven't seen in over a hundred years. (...kkkk!) Enjoy the Show!

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2776768]Your stating that diabetes was, by far, the leading comorbidity death factor is incorrect. At least one study has said that it was hypertension.[/QUOTE]You need to learn to read. That was the most common comorbidity. I think that is more correlation than causation. I said the sickest people I saw were diabetic. Elevated blood sugars impair immune function.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2776768]Another study said that the leading comorbidity death factor was lung cancer. [/QUOTE]LOL. Lung cancer as comorbidity? Maybe we can see how many people died with Covid die diving 10,000 feet without a parachute next? That is probably the worst comorbidity of all. Our tax dollars at work. Eye roll.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2776768]And WAPO and the NYT articles are based on fact. [URL]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-republican-counties-have-higher-death-rates-than-those-in-democratic-counties/[/URL] and [URL]https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/once-covid-vaccines-were-introduced-more-republicans-died-than-democrats[/URL] Republican-leaning counties have higher COVID death rates than Democratic-leaning ones as well as higher overall death rates. You can spin this any way you like and you undoubtedly will.[/QUOTE]I am not going to spin it. I just wish it would have been more relevant. How about Coke drinkers versus Pepsi? Burger King v McDonald's? Or tastes great versus less filing?

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2776768]Or just another who doesn't know the difference between weather and climate. Given your Miami comment, my assumption is the latter.[/QUOTE]Nah, I just thought once Biden got elected every day was going to be 80 degrees and sunny. What the hell happened?

[QUOTE=Spidy;2776868]Hey, how wrong you are! It is more than likely quite the opposite. I think, it is the newly minted QAnon/Repubs/MAGA tribe, that have a persistent sense of inadequacy and a debilitating inferiority complex, which compels them to feel a constant need to exert "their power" over others.

And a moral code that often manifests itself, as hate, violence and cruelty, towards others that don't share their MAGA ideology.

On the other hand, as an aside, I'm enjoying the [b]inadequate, incompetent[/b] and [b]dysfunctional[/b] spectacle that is the QAnon/Repub House Caucus. So not all is lost, the QAnon/Repubs can be quite entertaining.

So popcorn, pizza, wine, beer and a buck of chicken at the ready...it is turning out to be, a "blockbuster" show, one we haven't seen in over a hundred years. (...kkkk!) Enjoy the Show![/QUOTE]Please see my last paragraph from the post you're quoting.

I feel like 30% of the country are diehard Trump supporters and 30% are diehard Progressives. And the other 40% of us are fucked.

While I don't like Trump and would never vote for him, I could live in a country where he's President. The Trumpsters probably won't try to pick my pocket. I couldn't live in a country dominated by progressives. It would be adios USA, unless they made it financially impossible to exit, as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposed when they were running for president.

Yes the Speaker's race is providing much entertainment for Democrats. The pundits on MSNBC can't talk about anything else! It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. Any predictions?

[QUOTE=Spidy;2776868]Hey, how wrong you are! It is more than likely quite the opposite. I think, it is the newly minted QAnon/Repubs/MAGA tribe, that have a persistent sense of inadequacy and a debilitating inferiority complex, which compels them to feel a constant need to exert "their power" over others.

And a moral code that often manifests itself, as hate, violence and cruelty, towards others that don't share their MAGA ideology.

On the other hand, as an aside, I'm enjoying the [b]inadequate, incompetent[/b] and [b]dysfunctional[/b] spectacle that is the QAnon/Repub House Caucus. So not all is lost, the QAnon/Repubs can be quite entertaining.

So popcorn, pizza, wine, beer and a buck of chicken at the ready...it is turning out to be, a "blockbuster" show, one we haven't seen in over a hundred years. (...kkkk!) Enjoy the Show![/QUOTE]Blockbuster show?(I'm sure watching paint dry would be more exciting) wow bro you really should get out more, have you ever heard of something called pussy?

Or if not that, whatever trips your trigger LOL.

Well if you are a shut in?(or locked in a state psych ward) is that why you are on a political thread on a mongering website 24/7.

Free tip, do you know the internet has free porn? ANY kind you like bro? LOL.

Bon Appetit.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2776909]Please see my last paragraph from the post you're quoting.

I feel like 30% of the country are diehard Trump supporters and 30% are diehard Progressives. And the other 40% of us are fucked.

While I don't like Trump and would never vote for him, I could live in a country where he's President. The Trumpsters probably won't try to pick my pocket. I couldn't live in a country dominated by progressives.
[/QUOTE]The trumpsters might not pick your pocket, but they won't think twice before threatening you for doing your job if if your job may endanger their dear leader like some Republican election workers found out for themselves. And they might try to blow you up or kidnap you if they believe that you're encroaching on their "liberties". Some of them won't even hesitate to show up in your pizza parlor looking for chained trafficked children in your basement (that doesn't exist).

I'll take pickpockets, thank you very much.

The following is the best report I've ever read explaining how "conspiracy theories" operate. While the report was written with Damar Hamlin in mind (the guy who collapsed on the field during this past MNF game), it delves into conspiracy theories in general and antivaxxers specifically.

Since many won't bother to read the source (they'll call it 'fake news' like they always do), I'll post the text also. FYI, the bolded text is mine.

[URL]https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-anti-vaxxers-pounced-on-damar-hamlins-collapse[/URL]

Nicholas Grossman.

Updated Jan. 04,2023 7:10 PM ET Published Jan. 03,2023 8:14 PM ET.

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed after making a tackle during a Monday Night Football game versus the Cincinnati Bengals. While most saw a tragedy, anti-vaxxers saw opportunity.

As of this writing, the reason Hamlin's heart stopped remains unknown—one possibility raised by cardiologists is an arrhythmia caused by blunt impact to the chest—but that didn't stop conspiracy theorists from baselessly claiming it was a COVID-19 vaccine.

Whether Hamlin has taken the vaccine or any boosters, and (if so) how many doses he's had, isn't publicly known either. He was in the league last season, when the NFL said "nearly 95 percent of players are vaccinated," so it's likely he's had at least one COVID shot, but even if that's the case, we have no idea if he's had any since, and most of the already rare heart issues that arose after vaccination have occurred within seven days of getting one.

Nevertheless, some MAGA influencers, such as radio host Tim Young and former Navy officer Andrew Rose, used the incident to declare that public health officials' were lying when they said approved COVID vaccines are "safe and effective. "

Celebrity doctors who have spread doubts about COVID shots got in on the action too. Drew Pinksy, the former host of VH1's Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, tweeted "Another athlete who dropped suddenly" to his 2. 6 million followers, implying the number of athlete collapses spiked in the last two years (it hasn't), and that medical examination has indicated the not-actually-real spike was caused by vaccines.

However, sudden cardiac arrest in young athletes has been a medical concern for years—see, for example, these peer-reviewed papers from 2016 and 2001—and there's no evidence indicating that a vaccine first administered in December 2020 is a significant cause of it. Some anti-vaxxers point to VAERS, a public comment system run by America's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But since it allows anyone to say anything, medical professionals consider the data basically worthless, and the CDC emphasizes that VAERS reports do not show causality.

Aseem Malhotra, a you. K. Doctor whose writing on coronary artery disease the British Heart Foundation called "misleading and wrong," reacted to news of Hamlin's collapse by repeating his claim that COVID vaccines should be considered "a likely contributory factor in all unexpected cardiac arrests. Until proven otherwise. ".

That's not how science works. Evidence showing that X is a significant cause of why is necessary before scientists think it's a likely factor. Presuming otherwise violates a scientific principle so well known it's become a cliche: correlation is not causation. Just because two things happened around the same time doesn't mean one caused the other.

And with Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest, we don't even know if there's correlation.

Scientific analysis requires a baseline of skepticism, where the burden of proof falls on those making a causal claim. That doesn't mean one should assume a theory is definitely false, just that it shouldn't be considered likely until tested and supported by evidence.

To test a theory, scientists need data; a universe of cases, a representative sample, not merely a few anecdotes that fit a preconceived conclusion. Otherwise a correlation between X and why could be coincidence, or X and why could both be caused by some factor Z. Telling people to assume, without evidence, that X caused why until someone else proves that it doesn't is the method of superstition, manipulation, and conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theorists typically go further, not just insisting an unsupported theory is true, but continuing to insist it's true in the face of evidence that it's not. COVID vaccine conspiracy theories are an especially egregious example.

Over 13 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered worldwide. About 80 percent of the population in both the United States and United Kingdom have had at least one COVID shot. It's effectively the biggest scientific test of a vaccination program in history, and antivax theories of widespread negative effects have decisively failed.

If anti-vaxxers were right, there would be millions of vaccine-caused deaths and millions more hospitalizations. It should be like COVID itself, where just about every hospital in the USA, you. K. , and other countries has treated numerous patients, and most individuals know someone who died, or at least got seriously ill.

But that hasn't materialized. As with any medical procedure, there are some instances of complications, but they've been rare, nowhere near the scale anti-vaxxers presume. And yet, rather than breathe an epic sigh of relief that their fears were unwarranted, they've plowed ahead, pretending it actually happened.

They do this even at the anecdotal level.

Before pointing to Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest as evidence of his antivax theories, Aseem Malhotra made similar claims about Foo Fighters' drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died last year at the age of 50. Hawkins "suffered a sudden cardiac death because of the mRNA jab he'the recently taken under coercion," Malhotra blared, prompting criticism from the late drummer's family and bandmates. A toxicology report found ten substances in Hawkins' system, including opiates, antidepressants, and benzodiazepines, indicating his death was likely caused by an overdose.

[B]Lack of evidence doesn’t pose a problem for conspiracy theorists, because they can always incorporate the absence into their theories.

If the public doesn’t see proof, that must be because everyone in a position to observe or publicize the evidence is in on the conspiracy. It doesn’t make sense if you really think about it—do you realize how many people need to have superhuman competence to pull off something that big without leaving tons of evidence?

But conspiracy theorists know some people won’t. One allure of conspiracy theorist communities is the shared feeling that they’re smarter than others, that they’ve figured out a secret most can’t see, or that the reason they’re unhappy with something in their life isn’t some combination of bad luck and their own bad decisions, but due to people they don’t like working to keep them down.

Whether deliberate or not, pushing conspiracy theories is effectively con artistry, exploiting the gullible with claims that boil down to “just trust me.”

Malhotra, for example, said a “reliable source” backed up his claims about Taylor Hawkins, but the source was “afraid of speaking out for fear of losing his job.” If this supposed source never comes forward, others can’t evaluate his reliability or scientifically examine his evidence. How convenient.

Part of the trick is to cast conspiracy theorists and people who believe them as victims of shadowy forces. The source wants to show you the proof, but can’t, because his employers are in on it. The government and mainstream media “knows” the conspiracy is real, but they prevent you from finding out by punishing anyone who merely asks about it.[/B]

Alex Berenson—memorably dubbed by Atlantic writer Derek Thompson as "the pandemic's wrongest man" for how many debunked claims he aggressively pushed—denounced reports of doctors suggesting non-vaccine causes for Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest as "spin. " The "media and league will do whatever they can to avoid the obvious question," Berenson insinuated. But in reality, the NFL and various media figures are asking obvious questions such as "what happened? "will he be okay? And in sports media, "when will the postponed game resume?

If a reporter asks a doctor about it, they don't have access to Hamlin's medical records—including his vaccination status—and offer possible explanations consistent with the scientific literature, usually with careful caveats. As for the doctors treating Hamlin, reporters and talking heads don't know what specifics they're asking, and Berenson doesn't either.

Charlie Kirk, who runs Turning Point USA (TPUSA), one of the most influential Republican organizations in the United States, also claimed to be a victim for asking questions.

After Hamlin collapsed, Kirk tweeted to his 1. 9 million followers a sentiment similar to Dr. Drew's: "Athletes dropping suddenly. " Kirk called that an "all too familiar sight right now," as if it was a recent phenomenon. Seventeen hours later, Kirk announced that, "For committing the crime of noticing that athletes are tragically collapsing on the playing field, I have been labeled 'human garbage'. Paying attention yet?

There's no evidence vaccines played a role in Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest, but there is evidence someone harshly criticized Charlie Kirk. And the harsh criticism couldn't possibly be because just about every public figure gets harsh criticism on social media, and some people think Kirk is wrongly spreading misinformation that undermines individual and public health. No, it must indicate he's right and "not allowed" to say the things he's saying in public without any consequence besides harshly critical speech.

Early in 2022, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) did something similar in an appearance on Kirk's radio show, making the wildly inaccurate claim that "over 22,000 deaths" have been associated with COVID vaccines, and lamenting how there's "all these athletes dropping dead on the field, but we're supposed to ignore that. " When pressed, Johnson spokesperson Alexa Henning defended the senator by saying he was just asking questions, not making factual claims. For evidence that Johnson's concerns had merit, she linked to an anonymous blog post. Upon further examination by Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, the claims in that blog post could be traced back to an Austrian website associated with the country's far-right Freedom Party.

That's one way that fringe ideas become mainstream.

The problem with "just asking questions" is not that people are asking, it's that the questions they're asking have answers they refuse to acknowledge.

Anyone actually interested in the risks of various vaccines can look at data from clinical trials and real-world usage, consult peer-reviewed papers and public health officials, or just ask their doctor, almost all of whom recommend vaccination against COVID-19 and other diseases. Anyone who wants to know what caused Damar Hamlin's collapse will wait to hear from the medical professionals who are caring for him.

Anti-vaxxers, however, are interested in giving people the false impression that the answer is vaccines, so they pretend no one will answer the questions, and that someone somewhere is stopping people from asking them. It's not a coincidence that some of the most prominent figures "just asking questions" about COVID vaccines, such as Sen. Ron Johnson, Charlie Kirk, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Daily Wire pundit Candace Owens, also push political conspiracy theories. "Just asking questions"—whether about immigration, the 2020 election, or COVID vaccines—isn't pursuit of facts, it's rejection of them in favor of insinuation and grievance.

[B]If you can get people to reject authoritative sources of information, from professional medical associations to election administrators, you can get them to believe just about anything. It traps them in information bubbles where “everyone knows” that powerful forces are conspiring against them, they can’t trust anyone else, and have no choice but to fight back.

But factual reality is a constant threat to puncture the bubble, so conspiracy theorists exploit the human tendency to treat anecdotes on par with data to take things in the news, such as a football player’s tragic collapse on live TV—or the deaths of celebrities such as actress Betty White, rapper Coolio, or comedian Bob Saget—and claim they validate the theories, even if they don’t.[/B]

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2776945]The trumpsters might not pick your pocket, but they won't think twice before threatening you for doing your job if if your job may endanger their dear leader like some Republican election workers found out for themselves. And they might try to blow you up or kidnap you if they believe that you're encroaching on their "liberties". Some of them won't even hesitate to show up in your pizza parlor looking for chained trafficked children in your basement (that doesn't exist).

I'll take pickpockets, thank you very much.[/QUOTE]Trumpsters are on a tear to flush our tax dollars down the shitter into infinity right now without even being sworn in.

The Repubs, Bothsiders and Neithersiders who facilitated the Repub Redrawn Districts Pink Tinkle of 2022 must be livid that a whole week of their beloved Repubs' promised two full years of describing, envisioning and dwelling on the image of a naked Hunter Biden getting a footjob from an Asian hooker has been lost forever with possibly more lost weeks and months ahead.

Does anyone doubt that, should they ever actually take that Redrawn Districts Pink Tinkle majority in the House before November 2024, these Repubs will make the absolute worst decisions for the economy in order to pick all of our pockets in grand fashion just as Repubs have through every Repub-stewarded Great Depression, Great Recession, Massive Jobs Destruction and Mega Bear Crash and none of the Great Upside counterparts to those Repub accomplishments over the past 100 years?

As has been true since at least the middle of Reagan's first term as president, the reality for a greater American economy and stronger National Security is diminished and chipped away every time an American who is eligible to register and vote does not do so and vote Democrat straight down their ballot for every election every time.

[QUOTE=Tiny 12;2776909] While I don't like Trump and would never vote for him, I could live in a country where he's President. The Trumpsters probably won't try to pick my pocket. I couldn't live in a country dominated by progressives ...[/QUOTE] The "pick my pocket" phrase, was definitely an interesting turn of phrase you used, given MAGA Ideology. Meaning there is more than one way to "pick your pocket", as it were.

[QUOTE=Tiny 12;2776909] Yes the Speaker's race is providing much entertainment for Democrats. The pundits on MSNBC can't talk about anything else! It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out.[/QUOTE] Well, it seems I'm not the only one who likes [b] "watching paint dry" [/b](...kkkk!)

[QUOTE=Tiny 12;2776909] ... Any predictions? [/QUOTE] While very entertaining, sorry no real predictions of any consequence. Just more of the same, comical dysfunctional ineptitude on behalf of the QAnon/Repubs/MAGA fringe, to hijack legislative procedures, meaningful governing and and hold congress hostage. Like I said in a previous post, ...[b]MAGA Nihilist!!![/b]

Kevin McCarthy, [b]Nine[/b] rounds of voting for the speaker of the house and counting!!! I imagine, for those of us watching, this must seem like Kevin McCarthy's own personal version of [u][b]"Groundhog Day"[/b] [/u] (....kkkk!)

Yep! Wayyyyyyy better than watching paint dry...at least for some of us.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2777216]Yep! Wayyyyyyy better than watching paint dry...at least for some of us.[/QUOTE]Damn Spidy, We agree for once. I'd like your honest opinion about this video. I brought it to the attention of a Democratic friend who ironically said he'd rather watch paint dry than watch Sean Hannity and Lauren Boebert go at it. He honestly used those words. Anyway I think it's hilarious.

[URL]https://www.foxnews.com/video/6318208355112[/URL]

OK, I'll admit that listening to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez expound on Modern Monetary Theory or talk about the famed economist Milton Keynes is more entertaining. But that's mostly because AOC has nicer tatas. She and Boebert are both ditzes.

Hey,

How wrong you are! It is more than likely quite the opposite. I think, it is the newly minted QAnon / Repubs / MAGA tribe, that have a persistent sense of inadequacy and a debilitating inferiority complex, which compels them to feel a constant need to exert "their power" over others.

And a moral code that often manifests itself, as hate, violence and cruelty, towards others that don't share their MAGA ideology.

On the other hand, as an aside, I'm enjoying theinadequate, incompetent and dysfunctional spectacle that is the QAnon / Repub House Caucus. So not all is lost, the QAnon / Repubs can be quite entertaining.

So popcorn, pizza, wine, beer and a buck of chicken at the ready. It is turning out to be, a "blockbuster" show, one we haven't seen in over a hundred years. (. kkkk!) Enjoy the Show!

Something tells me the more it drags on the less you're going to like the final outcome and the more we will!! LMAO.

Please keep your chin tho LMAO.

I'm guessing the only 2 really shitting their diapers are those criminal Bidens.

MAGA 2024!

Maybe there will be an impeachment marathon after all this, Biden Harris Garland Wray and Mayorkas Lolol.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777209]Trumpsters are on a tear to flush our tax dollars down the shitter into infinity right now without even being sworn in.

[b]The Repubs, Bothsiders and Neithersiders who facilitated the Repub Redrawn Districts Pink Tinkle of 2022 [/b]must be livid that a whole week of their beloved Repubs' promised two full years of describing, envisioning and dwelling on the image of a naked Hunter Biden getting a footjob from an Asian hooker has been lost forever with possibly more lost weeks and months ahead.

Does anyone doubt that, should they ever actually take that[b] Redrawn Districts Pink Tinkle majority in the House[/b] before November 2024, these Repubs will make the absolute worst decisions for the economy in order to pick all of our pockets in grand fashion just as Repubs have through every Repub-stewarded Great Depression, Great Recession, Massive Jobs Destruction and Mega Bear Crash and none of the Great Upside counterparts to those Repub accomplishments over the past 100 years?

As has been true since at least the middle of Reagan's first term as president, the reality for a greater American economy and stronger National Security is diminished and chipped away every time an American who is eligible to register and vote does not do so and vote Democrat straight down their ballot for every election every time.[/QUOTE]Three million more votes were cast for Republican House candidates than Democrat House candidates. And Republicans control the House by a c*nt hair.

[URL]https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022[/URL]

Republicans received 2.8 percentage points more of the popular vote, and hold about 2.06 percentage points more seats in the House.

Woe be to the repubs, bothsiders and neithersiders who facilitated redrawn districts that resulted in a fair outcome, with party representation in the House approximately the same as the parties' respective share of the popular vote. For by facilitating fairer redistricting they have enabled the evil Republicans to control the House.

This is actually an excellent illustration, that the 40% of Americans who believe that Trump won the 2020 election are no more irrational than many Democrats. Democratic politicians are always dreaming up imaginary ways Republicans are disenfranchising voters.

Admittedly both sides try to disadvantage the other through redistricting. But every time a Republican legislature or Secretary of State comes up with some innocuous safeguards against voting fraud, the Democrats cry foul. Which just makes Republicans more suspicious of drop boxes and mail in voting and the like.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777240]Damn Spidy, We agree for once. I'd like your honest opinion about this video. I brought it to the attention of a Democratic friend who ironically said he'd rather watch paint dry than watch Sean Hannity and Lauren Boebert go at it. He honestly used those words. Anyway I think it's hilarious.
[/QUOTE]It is boring because Hannity has already made up his mind. He is of the we need to move the country along mindset. Tucker Carlson is more of Democracy is messy, and conflict is not always a bad thing.

When I went to my objective sources, the people I trust the most, you learned that this conflict existed with Dems before. AOC and her squad bucked Pelosi and Jimmy Dore was cheering them on. He wanted the squad to demand that the house vote on the single payer option of Medicare for all. What we learned with Obama is he was going to reform health care and he did, by letting the insurance companies right the new law. With Obama, we learned from wikileaks that Citigroup picked the whole Obama cabinet.

And of course, the vote for Medicare for all never hit the house floor as the squad caved.

So the guys like Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, and Glenn Greenwald, guys I trust, are asking are these Republican for real? Are they really going to get concessions for the citizens or is Kevin McCarthy going to rule and be a big money guy who does what is best for the big corporations paying him off? And the other possibility is: are these Republican rebels really going at McCarthy for selfish reasons and juicy committee seats?

So which way does it go? Do we get real concessions and reform, or is this just a ploy by these Republican rebels for more money and power? I want to believe the former, but if I had to bet, I would pick the latter. It is Washington after all.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777322]Three million more votes were cast for Republican House candidates than Democrat House candidates. And Republicans control the House by a c*nt hair.

[URL]https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022[/URL]

Republicans received 2.8 percentage points more of the popular vote, and hold about 2.06 percentage points more seats in the House.

Woe be to the repubs, bothsiders and neithersiders who facilitated redrawn districts that resulted in a fair outcome, with party representation in the House approximately the same as the parties' respective share of the popular vote. For by facilitating fairer redistricting they have enabled the evil Republicans to control the House.

This is actually an excellent illustration, that the 40% of Americans who believe that Trump won the 2020 election are no more irrational than many Democrats. Democratic politicians are always dreaming up imaginary ways Republicans are disenfranchising voters.

Admittedly both sides try to disadvantage the other through redistricting. But every time a Republican legislature or Secretary of State comes up with some innocuous safeguards against voting fraud, the Democrats cry foul. Which just makes Republicans more suspicious of drop boxes and mail in voting and the like.[/QUOTE]So now a greater percentage of Repubs will suffer the House Repub Crap Behavior and Results in their distrcts and nationally than they had to before the Repubs redrew them and took them from the Dems.

How lucky for them and the country. And much more fair. I wonder what results a do-over election today after just this first week of House "leadership" would produce.

I take it you are 100% in favor of determining the number of Senate Seats by population and abolishing the Electoral College system for a popular vote for POTUS, right?

I mean, to be fair and all that.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777385]
I take it you are 100% in favor of determining the number of Senate Seats by population and abolishing the Electoral College system for a popular vote for POTUS, right?

I mean, to be fair and all that.[/QUOTE]I favor a system like what Thomas Jefferson envisioned, where governmental authority and the power of the purse rest with the states to the extent that it makes sense. If we had that, it wouldn't matter so much which party controlled the federal government. Or how presidential and congressional elections were decided. People like you would be freer to be governed and live the way you want to live in California. And the same would be true for people like me in Texas, who don't appreciate northeastern and west coast politicians fucking us over with, for example, climate and border policies that don't make sense for our state. And taking our money and flushing a big % of it down the drain.

To answer your question, the way the Senate is set up, with 6 year terms, without the power to initiate spending bills, and with each state receiving equal representation, makes sense to me. And if we were writing a new Constitution, it would make sense to do away with the Electoral College and elect the winner based on the popular vote.

The only two presidential elections in modern times where the winner lost the popular vote were Bush vs. Gore in 2000 and Trump vs. Clinton in 2016.

If Gore had won in 2000, maybe we wouldn't have invaded Iraq. Many lives, mostly Iraqi, and many American dollars would have been saved. If Gore governed like Bill Clinton in his second term , he might have made a good president, if the House were in Republican hands and and people like Larry Summers and Robert Rubin were in his administration.

If Clinton had won in 2016, she couldn't have done much harm with a Republican House and Senate. She wouldn't have gotten re-elected in 2020, because of the Clinton Pandemic. (That's what you'd call it, right?) Our national debt wouldn't be as outrageously high as it is today, because split government results in less spending. And because there's no way the Republicans who would have won the 2020 elections would have been as profligate as Biden, Schumer and Pelosi. Another positive, Clinton probably wouldn't have engaged in Trade Wars, like Trump did. Finally, Trump is a blight on the Republican Party. If he'd lost in 2016, he probably would have disappeared into the sunset.

The big downsides would be that we never would have implemented corporate tax reform, including a cut in rates. And we probably wouldn't have had vaccines ready to go in January, 2021 with Clinton in charge.

So anyway, in summary, if we picked presidents based on the popular vote, maybe we'd be better off today.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777322]Three million more votes were cast for Republican House candidates than Democrat House candidates. And Republicans control the House by a c*nt hair.

[URL]https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022[/URL]

Republicans received 2.8 percentage points more of the popular vote, and hold about 2.06 percentage points more seats in the House.

Woe be to the repubs, bothsiders and neithersiders who facilitated redrawn districts that resulted in a fair outcome, with party representation in the House approximately the same as the parties' respective share of the popular vote. For by facilitating fairer redistricting they have enabled the evil Republicans to control the House.

This is actually an excellent illustration, that the 40% of Americans who believe that Trump won the 2020 election are no more irrational than many Democrats. Democratic politicians are always dreaming up imaginary ways Republicans are disenfranchising voters..[/QUOTE]Turns out Repubs redrew and gerrymandered so many districts to such an extreme degree for it to be virtually impossible to expect a Dem win in them that the vast majority of House seat candidates that ran UNOPPOSED or, at best, against a third party candidate who also had no chance of winning, were Repubs:

[B]Democrats Allowed 24 Republican House Candidates to Run Unopposed[/B]

[URL]https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-allowed-24-republican-house-candidates-run-unopposed-1760345[/URL]

[QUOTE]Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on U.S. Politics, told Newsweek that Democrats may have had good reason not to contest races they believed they were likely to lose.

"Funneling money, energy, and attention into races where Democrats have no shot at winning only diverts resources from contests that are in play," Gift said.

"While there's something to be said for running a candidate on principle especially against 'ultra-MAGA' Republicans like Paul Gosar there are risks," he said.

"Besides using up scarce resources, it's hard to find candidates willing to be a sacrificial lamb," Gift went on. "And even if these candidates do exist, any wrong moves they make including gaffes, scandals, or indiscretions reflect negatively on the party. Getting thrashed in a general election also isn't the best look for the Democratic Party."[/QUOTE]Dems wasting all that money and resources by placing and backing candidates in those races very, very likely would not have changed the outcome in those newly redrawn and heavily gerrymandered Repub districts one iota. However, it definitely would have significantly reduced the Repubs' bragging rights on that "Three million more votes" bit. LOL.

And if we also logically subtract most or all of the 142,000+ votes some non entity purportedly named "George Santos" scammed out of that New York district, well, that pretty much puts an end to any surgically isolated Repub / Bothsider / Neithersider whining about "fairness."

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777522]I favor a system like what Thomas Jefferson envisioned, where governmental authority and the power of the purse rest with the states to the extent that it makes sense. If we had that, it wouldn't matter so much which party controlled the federal government. Or how presidential and congressional elections were decided. People like you would be freer to be governed and live the way you want to live in California. And the same would be true for people like me in Texas, who don't appreciate northeastern and west coast politicians fucking us over with, for example, climate and border policies that don't make sense for our state. And taking our money and flushing a big % of it down the drain.

To answer your question, the way the Senate is set up, with 6 year terms, without the power to initiate spending bills, and with each state receiving equal representation, makes sense to me. And if we were writing a new Constitution, it would make sense to do away with the Electoral College and elect the winner based on the popular vote.

The only two presidential elections in modern times where the winner lost the popular vote were Bush vs. Gore in 2000 and Trump vs. Clinton in 2016.

If Gore had won in 2000, maybe we wouldn't have invaded Iraq.[/QUOTE]Yeah, we probably wouldn't have gotten Obama's Rapid Response Vaccine programs to produce millions and millions of vaccines for a so-called "Clinton Pandemic" by January 21,2021 because we wouldn't have needed them for a Pandemic that never happened in the first place.

Neither Clinton nor any other Dem would have defied all expert warnings not to do something so dangerous and stupid as to defund and remove the officials whose job it was to monitor and immediately report, prevent and respond to initial cases of a coronavirus spread.

But Repub Trump did.

Maybe a particular region in China would have needed some that quickly.

And, of course, the USA and the rest of the world could have then taken them at our leisure in the midst of another uninterrupted Great Dem Economic Expansion heading to budget surpluses, just to be sure, on the remote possibility that someday "one case out of China" did indeed break out and cross over somewhere.

It's not surprising that you favor typically Dem states with tens of millions of American taxpaying citizens residing in them, overwhelming contributors to USA GDP, getting the exact same representation in the Senate as typically Repub states with fewer American taxpaying citizens than live in a few square blocks of just one city in those Dem states and with practically nonexistent contribution to USA GDP.

So much for that representation "fairness" BS you tried to float.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777532]It's not surprising that you favor typically Dem states with tens of millions of American taxpaying citizens residing in them, overwhelming contributors to USA GDP, getting the exact same representation in the Senate as typically Repub states with fewer American taxpaying citizens than live in a few square blocks of just one city in those Dem states and with practically nonexistent contribution to USA GDP.[/QUOTE]I'm perfectly fine with one vote for each tax dollar paid.

And like I already said, I'm perfectly fine electing the president by popular vote.

This is the United STATES of America. Again, as a believer in a federal system, like Thomas Jefferson, I believe power should be vested in the states to the extent it makes sense. So it makes sense to for each state to have equal representation in one of the governing federal bodies. Many other countries have similar systems, like Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, and Burundi. And that's just going up to the B's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legislatures_by_country

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777524]Turns out Repubs redrew and gerrymandered so many districts to such an extreme degree for it to be virtually impossible to expect a Dem win in them that the vast majority of House seat candidates that ran UNOPPOSED or, at best, against a third party candidate who also had no chance of winning, were Repubs:

[B]Democrats Allowed 24 Republican House Candidates to Run Unopposed[/B]

[URL]https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-allowed-24-republican-house-candidates-run-unopposed-1760345[/URL]

Dems wasting all that money and resources by placing and backing candidates in those races very, very likely would not have changed the outcome in those newly redrawn and heavily gerrymandered Repub districts one iota. However, it definitely would have significantly reduced the Repubs' bragging rights on that "Three million more votes" bit. LOL.

And if we also logically subtract most or all of the 142,000+ votes some non entity purportedly named "George Santos" scammed out of that New York district, well, that pretty much puts an end to any surgically isolated Repub / Bothsider / Neithersider whining about "fairness."[/QUOTE]You fail to note that there were about 12 races where Democrats were the only major party on the ballot. And that in reality only 16 Republicans ran unopposed, with no opponent from the Democratic Party or another Party.

[URL]https://www.270towin.com/news/2022/09/15/uncontested-the-35-house-districts-with-only-one-major-party-ballot_1419.html[/URL]

It wouldn't have made any difference Tooms. Use the following assumptions.

USA population is 330 million.

There are 435 House Districts.

There were 11 more Republicans than Democrats running in districts where there was no opponent from a major party (from above link).

About 1/3rd of voters in a district where there's only one major party candidate would have voted for a hypothetical opposition candidate.

A total of 107.6 million people voted in the House election (from Cook political link I've shown you at least 3 times).

Based on the above, a reasonable estimate of the additional number of popular votes Democrats would have gotten would be

11 x (330 million /435) x 107.6/330 x 1/3rd = 900,000

Republicans still would have won the popular vote by over 2 million votes.

And it would be completely illogical to subtract out 142,000 votes for Santos as you argue. If another Republican had run, he probably would have gotten about the same number of votes as Santos. Or the difference would have been next to nothing compared to the 3 million vote margin for the Republicans.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777522]I favor a system like what Thomas Jefferson envisioned, where governmental authority and the power of the purse rest with the states to the extent that it makes sense. If we had that, it wouldn't matter so much which party controlled the federal government. Or how presidential and congressional elections were decided. People like you would be freer to be governed and live the way you want to live in California. And the same would be true for people like me in Texas, who don't appreciate northeastern and west coast politicians fucking us over with, for example, climate and border policies that don't make sense for our state. And taking our money and flushing a big % of it down the drain.

To answer your question, the way the Senate is set up, with 6 year terms, without the power to initiate spending bills, and with each state receiving equal representation, makes sense to me. And if we were writing a new Constitution, it would make sense to do away with the Electoral College and elect the winner based on the popular vote.

The only two presidential elections in modern times where the winner lost the popular vote were Bush vs. Gore in 2000 and Trump vs. Clinton in 2016.

If Gore had won in 2000, maybe we wouldn't have invaded Iraq. Many lives, mostly Iraqi, and many American dollars would have been saved. If Gore governed like Bill Clinton in his second term , he might have made a good president, if the House were in Republican hands and and people like Larry Summers and Robert Rubin were in his administration.

If Clinton had won in 2016, she couldn't have done much harm with a Republican House and Senate. She wouldn't have gotten re-elected in 2020, because of the Clinton Pandemic. (That's what you'd call it, right?) Our national debt wouldn't be as outrageously high as it is today, because split government results in less spending. And because there's no way the Republicans who would have won the 2020 elections would have been as profligate as Biden, Schumer and Pelosi. Another positive, Clinton probably wouldn't have engaged in Trade Wars, like Trump did. Finally, Trump is a blight on the Republican Party. If he'd lost in 2016, he probably would have disappeared into the sunset.

The big downsides would be that we never would have implemented corporate tax reform, including a cut in rates. And we probably wouldn't have had vaccines ready to go in January, 2021 with Clinton in charge.

So anyway, in summary, if we picked presidents based on the popular vote, maybe we'd be better off today.[/QUOTE]They chased him out long ago (a CIS white male) lololol.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHR2dk4UNCM[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777522]I favor a system like what Thomas Jefferson envisioned, where governmental authority and the power of the purse rest with the states to the extent that it makes sense. If we had that, it wouldn't matter so much which party controlled the federal government. Or how presidential and congressional elections were decided. People like you would be freer to be governed and live the way you want to live in California. And the same would be true for people like me in Texas, who don't appreciate northeastern and west coast politicians fucking us over with, for example, climate and border policies that don't make sense for our state. And taking our money and flushing a big % of it down the drain.

To answer your question, the way the Senate is set up, with 6 year terms, without the power to initiate spending bills, and with each state receiving equal representation, makes sense to me. And if we were writing a new Constitution, it would make sense to do away with the Electoral College and elect the winner based on the popular vote.

The only two presidential elections in modern times where the winner lost the popular vote were Bush vs. Gore in 2000 and Trump vs. Clinton in 2016.

If Gore had won in 2000, maybe we wouldn't have invaded Iraq. Many lives, mostly Iraqi, and many American dollars would have been saved. If Gore governed like Bill Clinton in his second term , he might have made a good president, if the House were in Republican hands and and people like Larry Summers and Robert Rubin were in his administration.

If Clinton had won in 2016, she couldn't have done much harm with a Republican House and Senate. She wouldn't have gotten re-elected in 2020, because of the Clinton Pandemic. (That's what you'd call it, right?) Our national debt wouldn't be as outrageously high as it is today, because split government results in less spending. And because there's no way the Republicans who would have won the 2020 elections would have been as profligate as Biden, Schumer and Pelosi. Another positive, Clinton probably wouldn't have engaged in Trade Wars, like Trump did. Finally, Trump is a blight on the Republican Party. If he'd lost in 2016, he probably would have disappeared into the sunset.

The big downsides would be that we never would have implemented corporate tax reform, including a cut in rates. And we probably wouldn't have had vaccines ready to go in January, 2021 with Clinton in charge.

So anyway, in summary, if we picked presidents based on the popular vote, maybe we'd be better off today.[/QUOTE][URL]https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2023/01/thailand-authorities-slightly-increase-restrictions-as-of-jan-6-update-76[/URL]

Does anyone have a link for cheap insurance for the CCP virus?

Interesting points Elvis.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2777348]When I went to my objective sources, the people I trust the most, you learned that this conflict existed with Dems before. AOC and her squad bucked Pelosi and Jimmy Dore was cheering them on. He wanted the squad to demand that the house vote on the single payer option of Medicare for all. What we learned with Obama is he was going to reform health care and he did, by letting the insurance companies right the new law. With Obama, we learned from wikileaks that Citigroup picked the whole Obama cabinet.

And of course, the vote for Medicare for all never hit the house floor as the squad caved[/QUOTE]That's my big problem with Obamacare too. Yeah it's nice more people are covered by insurance. But it's doubling down on a failed system. It didn't do jack to lower cost or improve quality. Yes the insurance companies are one of the main causes of out of control costs.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2777348]So the guys like Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, and Glenn Greenwald, guys I trust, are asking are these Republican for real? Are they really going to get concessions for the citizens or is Kevin McCarthy going to rule and be a big money guy who does what is best for the big corporations paying him off? And the other possibility is: are these Republican rebels really going at McCarthy for selfish reasons and juicy committee seats?

[b]So which way does it go? Do we get real concessions and reform, or is this just a ploy by these Republican rebels for more money and power?[/b] I want to believe the former, but if I had to bet, I would pick the latter. It is Washington after all.[/QUOTE]I think it's both Elvis. Some of the rebels care about specific issues, government spending or whatever, and are trying to get leverage. And others like you say are looking for more money and power. If you believe the pundits on cable news, Matt Gaetz is an example of the later. He's raising lots of money from people who don't like McCarthy or business as usual, and he's raising his profile hugely. The longer this goes on, the more money he raises. And I imagine he needs a lot. As you know as well as anyone, courting sugarbabies in the USA is not cheap, compared to Mexico anyway.

[QUOTE=Tiny 12;2777240]Damn Spidy, We agree for once. I'd like your honest opinion about this video. I brought it to the attention of a Democratic friend who ironically said he'd rather watch paint dry than watch Sean Hannity and Lauren Boebert go at it. He honestly used those words. Anyway I think it's hilarious.

[URL]https://www.foxnews.com/video/6318208355112[/URL]

OK, I'll admit that listening to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez expound on Modern Monetary Theory or talk about the famed economist Milton Keynes is more entertaining. But that's mostly because AOC has nicer tatas. She and Boebert are both ditzes.[/QUOTE]

Finally got around to watching this video, due to router/internet provider problems, but that's another story.

Anyways, against my better judgement (...kkkk) I did watch the video and yes...agreed, it's hilarious. The Repub infighting, is just music to my ears, but I may come to regret said comments if it persists, for the next two (2) years.

PS: Cheers to splendid nuances of watching paint dry!

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777537]You fail to note that there were about 12 races where Democrats were the only major party on the ballot. And that in reality only 16 Republicans ran unopposed, with no opponent from the Democratic Party or another Party.

[URL]https://www.270towin.com/news/2022/09/15/uncontested-the-35-house-districts-with-only-one-major-party-ballot_1419.html[/URL]

It wouldn't have made any difference Tooms. Use the following assumptions.

USA population is 330 million.

There are 435 House Districts.

There were 11 more Republicans than Democrats running in districts where there was no opponent from a major party (from above link).

About 1/3rd of voters in a district where there's only one major party candidate would have voted for a hypothetical opposition candidate.

A total of 107.6 million people voted in the House election (from Cook political link I've shown you at least 3 times).

Based on the above, a reasonable estimate of the additional number of popular votes Democrats would have gotten would be

11 x (330 million /435) x 107.6/330 x 1/3rd = 900,000

Republicans still would have won the popular vote by over 2 million votes.

And it would be completely illogical to subtract out 142,000 votes for Santos as you argue. If another Republican had run, he probably would have gotten about the same number of votes as Santos. Or the difference would have been next to nothing compared to the 3 million vote margin for the Republicans.[/QUOTE]Uh-huh. And how does your pencil-to-paper recalculation of the Repub vote advantage from 3 million to 2 million effect your earlier whine about the "unfairness" that your beloved Great Recession and Massive Jobs Destruction-Producing Repubs had a 2. 8% point advantage in votes with all those additional UNOPPOSED races but only Pink Tinkled out a 2. 06% advantage in House seats?

Did it pretty much make it a whine without justification?

My point about "George Santos" wasn't about replacing him with another Repub Trump Mini-Me candidate with better hiding places for their fraud from the beginning. It was about him being busted and his entire fake bio being outted days before the election rather than weeks after the election.

Here is what I am Partisan for:

When the record, data and all evidence begins to show Repubs are the ones producing all of the major USA Economic and Jobs Creation Boom Times, even at a piddling and largely irrelevant cost of a few months of inevitable high inflation during their Great Economic Recoveries from Massive Job Losses, and none of the Great Depressions, Great Recessions and Massive Jobs Destruction while Dems are producing all of the Crashes, Great Depressions, Great Recessions and Massive Jobs Destruction but none of those aforementioned Boom Times, I will be happy to start voting for and touting Repubs.

Yes, I am that Partisan for Economic and National Security gains vs horrific losses.

But there is really zero sign or indication that colossal switcheroo between the Parties is in the offing in any of our lifetimes:

[B]Bidens rescue plan made inflation worse but the economy better.
Government cash boosted demand when economy was struggling to produce, experts say[/B]

[URL]https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/09/inflation-economy-biden-covid/[/URL]

[B]December jobs report: Payrolls rise by 223,000, unemployment rate falls to 3.5%[/B]

[URL]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/december-jobs-report-january-6-2023-125423740.html[/URL]

Thanks, Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.

Those duly elected Dems were the ones who shouldered all the heavy lifting and assumed all of the political risk to do what was necessary, when it was necessary, to do as much of it as possible under the tightest restrictions that existed in the Real World and get as much bang for the American taxpayer's buck out of it with as little or less significant pain relative to the gain as anyone predicted.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2777348]

So the guys like Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, and Glenn Greenwald, guys I trust,
.[/QUOTE]Great to see you mention these 3. They are my top 3 USA journalists right now too. Maybe Matt T would also qualify. Doesn't matter if your Rep or Dem, these 3 will call you out if your talking shlt. Thats how real journalism should be. Maybe you will like David Doel too. His Canadian but has a good channel too. Rational National.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777568] As you know as well as anyone, courting sugarbabies in the USA is not cheap, compared to Mexico anyway.[/QUOTE]Hookers are hookers no matter what name you give them, and there's no courting involved. Transactions are transactions.

We had one of these "seeking arrangement" girls interviewed on our local news. She was doing pretty good until the prostitution question was directly presented to her, then I've never seen someone so panicked, flustered, and defensive. That's because in spite of all the rationalizations going on in her head, in her heart she knows very well what she is. And their clients know just as well that they are clients.

As to Gaetz, who knows or even cares about his love life as long as he's seeking out adults, but he's a fundamentally unAmerican, lying lowlife whose ideology the American people reject. Though sadly his crowd is able to assert some influence in the Republican Party.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2777598]Great to see you mention these 3. They are my top 3 USA journalists right now too. Maybe Matt T would also qualify. Doesn't matter if your Rep or Dem, these 3 will call you out if your talking shlt. Thats how real journalism should be. Maybe you will like David Doel too. His Canadian but has a good channel too. Rational National.[/QUOTE]Glad to see other folks not getting sucked into the CNN / FOX partisan stupidity.

[QUOTE=Jmioffe;2777701]Glad to see other folks not getting sucked into the CNN / FOX partisan stupidity.[/QUOTE]It should come as no surprise but money money money. Many of CNN's casters are former FOX employees. Seems their attitudes changed with moving to CNN for money?

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2777624]As to Gaetz, who knows or even cares about his love life as long as he's seeking out adults,[/QUOTE]Allegedly Gaetz was dating a 17 year old he met off of Seeking.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2777552]They chased him out long ago (a CIS white male) lololol.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHR2dk4UNCM[/URL][/QUOTE]I don't think they ran him off Marquis. He probably left of his own accord after the politically correct, anti-libertarian Democrats ran off all the affordable hookers. Kamala Harris was the ring leader when she was California attorney general. She went on to greater things when she became a USA Senator, sponsoring FOSTA and SESTA to try to shut down prostitution throughout the USA.

Interesting contrast in the video between wealth and poverty in Monterey County, California. Maybe Tooms moved to Bangkok because he figured he'd be right at home. I don't know if you've been there, but you can visit plush skyscrapers and shopping malls. And if you walk a few blocks you're in a shanty town. You don't have to drive like in California! Although actually the tent shanty towns in Salinas look more like Jakarta than Bangkok.

No wonder so many people are leaving the PRC (Peoples Republic of California).

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2777561][URL]https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2023/01/thailand-authorities-slightly-increase-restrictions-as-of-jan-6-update-76[/URL]

Does anyone have a link for cheap insurance for the CCP virus?[/QUOTE]Yes indeed, if only Thailand had virus insurance. The country was hit very hard by the pandemic because tourism is one of the largest contributors to GDP. And the Thais through 2020 and into 2021 tried to control the spread of the virus through lockdowns. They effectively shut down tourism and travel from overseas until last year, unless you were willing to jump through hoops. Tooms apparently believes we should have done something similar in the USA so we wouldn't have suffered the ill effects of his so called "Trump Pandemic."

Anyway, as I have said several times, Tooms is a bright guy. The availability of hot and cold running hotties was undoubtedly not his only consideration in moving to Thailand. He receives income in dollars from his rental properties but spends Thai Baht. Things must have been cheap for him before the pandemic. But now they're super cheap. Thailand's COVID policies and the effect on tourism played a large part in the depreciation of the Baht. So that now a good all night hooker in Bangkok costs less than a steak dinner (with wine) in many American restaurants.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777594]Uh-huh. And how does your pencil-to-paper recalculation of the Repub vote advantage from 3 million to 2 million effect your earlier whine about the "unfairness" that your beloved Great Recession and Massive Jobs Destruction-Producing Repubs had a 2. 8% point advantage in votes with all those additional UNOPPOSED races but only Pink Tinkled out a 2. 06% advantage in House seats?

Did it pretty much make it a whine without justification?[/QUOTE]Where did I mention unfairness? I said exactly the opposite:

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777322]Republicans received 2.8 percentage points more of the popular vote, and hold about 2.06 percentage points more seats in the House.

Woe be to the repubs, bothsiders and neithersiders who facilitated redrawn districts [b]that resulted in a fair outcome, with party representation in the House approximately the same as the parties' respective share of the popular vote.[/b] For by facilitating fairer redistricting they have enabled the evil Republicans to control the House.[/QUOTE]If you whack 900,000 votes off the Republican total, then the party received around 2% more popular votes and 2% more seats.

As to your point that more Republicans were running unopposed than Democrats, what caused that? Maybe Democratic legislatures were piling as many Republicans as they could into certain districts? That's a classic redistricting strategy. I'm not saying that entirely explains why, but it might have played a part.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777594]Here is what I am Partisan for:

When the record, data and all evidence begins to show Repubs are the ones producing all of the major USA Economic and Jobs Creation Boom Times, even at a piddling and largely irrelevant cost of a few months of inevitable high inflation during their Great Economic Recoveries from Massive Job Losses, and none of the Great Depressions, Great Recessions and Massive Jobs Destruction while Dems are producing all of the Crashes, Great Depressions, Great Recessions and Massive Jobs Destruction but none of those aforementioned Boom Times, I will be happy to start voting for and touting Repubs.

Yes, I am that Partisan for Economic and National Security gains vs horrific losses.[/QUOTE]Yada yada.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777594]But there is really zero sign or indication that colossal switcheroo between the Parties is in the offing in any of our lifetimes:

[B]Bidens rescue plan made inflation worse but the economy better.
Government cash boosted demand when economy was struggling to produce, experts say[/B]

[URL]https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/09/inflation-economy-biden-covid/[/URL][/QUOTE]I can't read the article. And who's this joker David J. Lynch who wrote the article? I'd trust Democratic Party economists Larry Summers and Jason Furman over David J. Lynch any day.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777594][B]December jobs report: Payrolls rise by 223,000, unemployment rate falls to 3.5%[/B]

[URL]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/december-jobs-report-january-6-2023-125423740.html[/URL][/QUOTE]Wait and see what the unemployment rate is after the Fed finishes raising interest rates, to counteract inflation that was kicked off by the excessive fiscal stimulus in Biden's American Rescue Plan. As it is, the labor force participation rate has flatlined around 62.2% since February, 2022, down from 63.3% before COVID.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777594]Thanks, Joe, Nancy, Chuck, the Dems and everyone who voted for them.

Those duly elected Dems were the ones who shouldered all the heavy lifting and assumed all of the political risk to do what was necessary, when it was necessary, to do as much of it as possible under the tightest restrictions that existed in the Real World and get as much bang for the American taxpayer's buck out of it with as little or less significant pain relative to the gain as anyone predicted.[/QUOTE]Since when is spending money that we can't afford to spend, heavy lifting? Since when is buying off voters with $1400 checks and businesses with corporate welfare heavy lifting? And if our Democratic President, House and Senate imposed the tightest restrictions in the Real World, then why have over 700,000 Americans died from COVID since Biden took office?

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777791]Where did I mention unfairness? I said exactly the opposite:

If you whack 900,000 votes off the Republican total, then the party received around 2% more popular votes and 2% more seats.

As to your point that more Republicans were running unopposed than Democrats, what caused that? Maybe Democratic legislatures were piling as many Republicans as they could into certain districts? That's a classic redistricting strategy. I'm not saying that entirely explains why, but it might have played a part.

Yada yada.

I can't read the article. And who's this joker David J. Lynch who wrote the article? I'd trust Democratic Party economists Larry Summers and Jason Furman over David J. Lynch any day.

Wait and see what the unemployment rate is after the Fed finishes raising interest rates, to counteract inflation that was kicked off by the excessive fiscal stimulus in Biden's American Rescue Plan. As it is, the labor force participation rate has flatlined around 62.2% since February, 2022, down from 63.3% before COVID.

Since when is spending money that we can't afford to spend, heavy lifting? Since when is buying off voters with $1400 checks and businesses with corporate welfare heavy lifting? And if our Democratic President, House and Senate imposed the tightest restrictions in the Real World, then why have over 700,000 Americans died from COVID since Biden took office?[/QUOTE]As the headline I included stated, the Lynch report didn't just whine about the 0. 2% - 3% or so increase in already declining inflation possibly added by the ARP but, uncharacteristically for typically pro Repub MSM, also cited the historic gains in the economy thanks to Biden's American Rescue Plan, based on the data.

You know, as continued in 2022 with 4. 5 million jobs created last year, the unemployment rate back to 3. 5%, etc as opposed to millions upon millions of jobs wiped out thanks to Trump's horrific economic stewardship at the end. Well, even compared to Trump flushing 2. 5+ Trillion down the shitter and only getting 1 million fewer jobs created for it at the beginning for that matter.

Don't tell us Summers is so out of touch that he didn't even acknowledge that the ARP also improved the economy. LOL. The more you rhapsodise about him, the more he sounds like one of those economists who "predicted 6 of the last 2 Recessions. " At least your quote of him previously had him admitting he gets a lot of this stuff wrong. Which would also explain why Biden didn't stop the ARP in its tracks based on anything Larry Summers opined about it and wisely forged ahead with as much as he could get with all 50 Repub Senators Doing Nothing, as is their Party's usual response to Great Repub Crashes and Massive Job Destruction, and two DINOs on the Dem's half.

After this past week's Preview of Coming Attractions for how the Repub House Majority is clearly Un. Fit. To. Serve as witnessed by their international embarrassment shit show to pass the easiest vote they will have before them for the next two years, Larry Summers ought to run, not walk, to the nearest microphone and apologise for anything negative he ever said about a Dem or a Dem-proposed complex but necessary legislation that got passed while any elected Repub was within 1000 miles of the process.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777568]And others like you say are looking for more money and power. If you believe the pundits on cable news, Matt Gaetz is an example of the later. He's raising lots of money from people who don't like McCarthy or business as usual, and he's raising his profile hugely. The longer this goes on, the more money he raises. And I imagine he needs a lot. As you know as well as anyone, courting sugarbabies in the USA is not cheap, compared to Mexico anyway.[/QUOTE]The very fact that the fake news and deep state are attacking Gaetz should tell you he's onto something. He doesn't need any money: he's from a super-rich family, which is part of what that false sugarbaby scam was about (it was an attempt to shake down his father). But of course the Washington alphabet agencies in conjunction with the media and democrats (the three legged deep state stool) blew up that fake story which came to nothing, just like the fake Russia collusion nonsense, the fake "insurrection" on Jan 6 in which nobody died except Ashli Babbitt, and everything else they push (while ignoring / vastly downplaying the actual insurrections by BLM / antifa which burned half the country down).

Imagine the FBI and media going hard after that Gaetz nothingburger while completely ignoring the guest list for Jeffrey Epstein's pe-do island. Really gets the noggin joggin, eh?

Gaetz is a threat to the entrenched Washington swamp and its globohomo agenda of open borders; anti-white hate and replacement; lowered living standards and destruction of the middle class under the excuse of "climate change'; crazed feminism; gay sex parades and child trannies; pe-do-files; and expensive, wasteful wars to enforce said agenda on the rest of the world.

Trump was / is also a threat to that agenda, as is Tucker Carlson. You can tell who is and isn't a threat by who they go after. The useless Sean Hannity, for instance, a neocon Republican establishment shill, is left alone. No FBI raids or antifa attacks on his house.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777785]I don't think they ran him off Marquis. He probably left of his own accord after the politically correct, anti-libertarian Democrats ran off all the affordable hookers. Kamala Harris was the ring leader when she was California attorney general. She went on to greater things when she became a USA Senator, sponsoring FOSTA and SESTA to try to shut down prostitution throughout the USA.

Interesting contrast in the video between wealth and poverty in Monterey County, California. Maybe Tooms moved to Bangkok because he figured he'd be right at home. I don't know if you've been there, but you can visit plush skyscrapers and shopping malls. And if you walk a few blocks you're in a shanty town. You don't have to drive like in California! Although actually the tent shanty towns in Salinas look more like Jakarta than Bangkok.

No wonder so many people are leaving the PRC (Peoples Republic of California).

Yes indeed, if only Thailand had virus insurance. The country was hit very hard by the pandemic because tourism is one of the largest contributors to GDP. And the Thais through 2020 and into 2021 tried to control the spread of the virus through lockdowns. They effectively shut down tourism and travel from overseas until last year, unless you were willing to jump through hoops. Tooms apparently believes we should have done something similar in the USA so we wouldn't have suffered the ill effects of his so called "Trump Pandemic."

Anyway, as I have said several times, Tooms is a bright guy. The availability of hot and cold running hotties was undoubtedly not his only consideration in moving to Thailand. He receives income in dollars from his rental properties but spends Thai Baht. Things must have been cheap for him before the pandemic. But now they're super cheap. Thailand's COVID policies and the effect on tourism played a large part in the depreciation of the Baht. So that now a good all night hooker in Bangkok costs less than a steak dinner (with wine) in many American restaurants.[/QUOTE]Just kidding hes a great guy and an even better monger.

I have met some of the most prolific mongers in the world.

Hes easily in the Top 3,then theres Siri in Deutschland hes a savage and myself of course 555.

But I may rank myself #1 if for no other reason they are very one dimensional.

Siri has a very small sphere of influence as does ET.

Me on the other hand 555 I aspire to pummel putas in every capital on the planet before I'm done 555.

[URL]https://www.newsmax.com/reagan/narco-obrador/2022/07/12/id/1078370/[/URL]

[URL]https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/mexico-city-residents-angered-by-influx-of-americans-speaking-english-gentrifying-area-report/[/URL]

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2777832]Just kidding hes a great guy and an even better monger.

I have met some of the most prolific mongers in the world.

Hes easily in the Top 3,then theres Siri in Deutschland hes a savage and myself of course 555.

But I may rank myself #1 if for no other reason they are very one dimensional.

Siri has a very small sphere of influence as does ET.

Me on the other hand 555 I aspire to pummel putas in every capital on the planet before I'm done 555.

[URL]https://www.newsmax.com/reagan/narco-obrador/2022/07/12/id/1078370/[/URL]

[URL]https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/mexico-city-residents-angered-by-influx-of-americans-speaking-english-gentrifying-area-report/[/URL][/QUOTE]Well, coming from you, that is very high praise indeed, Marquis. You are certainly the most studied and analytical monger I have met. And to many more rewarding Real Sex ends than most of us. I have incorporated several of your observations and methods into my hobby.

Yes, I have kept my mongering to Thailand since I was "run" out California with enough California-related investments, savings, pension and rental income to enjoy one hell of a great early retirement, worry-free and comfortable life of leisure getting laid and blown by as many sweet young ladies as I can fit in before the final wrap up.

Actually, these last 3 years were to be when I was going to revisit a few decades past favorite countries and explore some new ones. But then, as we all know, Trump laid the groundwork and did everything a world leader could possibly do to produce that Trump's Pandemic thingy. Now I see we still aren't nearly done with it in terms of travel restrictions, its negative effect on international mongering, your hobby, and likely never will be. Elections matter.

On your latest travel challenge re Trump's Pandemic, wouldn't there be ads and links to where and how to buy temporary Trump's Pandemic covered insurance to last at least as long as your travel plans on the same sites where you purchase airline tickets? When it was required in the past, I recall hearing it was not very expensive, maybe no more than 1000 - 2000 THB /$30 - $60 USD, thanks, Joe, per month depending on your age.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777785]I don't think they ran him off Marquis. He probably left of his own accord after the politically correct, anti-libertarian Democrats ran off all the affordable hookers. Kamala Harris was the ring leader when she was California attorney general. She went on to greater things when she became a USA Senator, sponsoring FOSTA and SESTA to try to shut down prostitution throughout the USA.

Interesting contrast in the video between wealth and poverty in Monterey County, California. Maybe Tooms moved to Bangkok because he figured he'd be right at home. I don't know if you've been there, but you can visit plush skyscrapers and shopping malls. And if you walk a few blocks you're in a shanty town. You don't have to drive like in California! Although actually the tent shanty towns in Salinas look more like Jakarta than Bangkok.

No wonder so many people are leaving the PRC (Peoples Republic of California).

Yes indeed, if only Thailand had virus insurance. The country was hit very hard by the pandemic because tourism is one of the largest contributors to GDP. And the Thais through 2020 and into 2021 tried to control the spread of the virus through lockdowns. They effectively shut down tourism and travel from overseas until last year, unless you were willing to jump through hoops. Tooms apparently believes we should have done something similar in the USA so we wouldn't have suffered the ill effects of his so called "Trump Pandemic."

Anyway, as I have said several times, Tooms is a bright guy. The availability of hot and cold running hotties was undoubtedly not his only consideration in moving to Thailand. He receives income in dollars from his rental properties but spends Thai Baht. Things must have been cheap for him before the pandemic. But now they're super cheap. Thailand's COVID policies and the effect on tourism played a large part in the depreciation of the Baht. So that now a good all night hooker in Bangkok costs less than a steak dinner (with wine) in many American restaurants.[/QUOTE]I was in BKK for 60 days and seen many parts of the city and didn't see any shanty towns.

Now try walking in San Francisco LOS Angeles or San Diego.

Without stepping in human diarrhea, a true 3rd world shithole.

[URL]https://www.axios.com/2020/12/08/china-spy-california-politicians[/URL]

[URL]https://nypost.com/2020/12/09/rep-swalwell-wont-say-if-he-had-sex-with-chinese-spy/[/URL]

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2777832]Just kidding hes a great guy and an even better monger.

I have met some of the most prolific mongers in the world.

Hes easily in the Top 3,then theres Siri in Deutschland hes a savage and myself of course 555.

But I may rank myself #1 if for no other reason they are very one dimensional.

Siri has a very small sphere of influence as does ET.

Me on the other hand 555 I aspire to pummel putas in every capital on the planet before I'm done 555.

[URL]https://www.newsmax.com/reagan/narco-obrador/2022/07/12/id/1078370/[/URL]

[URL]https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/mexico-city-residents-angered-by-influx-of-americans-speaking-english-gentrifying-area-report/[/URL][/QUOTE][URL]https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/diarrhea-poured-on-woman-hollywood-homeless/2112762/[/URL]

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2777829]The very fact that the fake news and deep state are attacking Gaetz should tell you he's onto something. He doesn't need any money: he's from a super-rich family, which is part of what that false sugarbaby scam was about (it was an attempt to shake down his father). But of course the Washington alphabet agencies in conjunction with the media and democrats (the three legged deep state stool) blew up that fake story which came to nothing, just like the fake Russia collusion nonsense, the fake "insurrection" on Jan 6 in which nobody died except Ashli Babbitt, and everything else they push (while ignoring / vastly downplaying the actual insurrections by BLM / antifa which burned half the country down).

Imagine the FBI and media going hard after that Gaetz nothingburger while completely ignoring the guest list for Jeffrey Epstein's pe-do island. Really gets the noggin joggin, eh?

Gaetz is a threat to the entrenched Washington swamp and its globohomo agenda of open borders; anti-white hate and replacement; lowered living standards and destruction of the middle class under the excuse of "climate change'; crazed feminism; gay sex parades and child trannies; pe-do-files; and expensive, wasteful wars to enforce said agenda on the rest of the world.

Trump was / is also a threat to that agenda, as is Tucker Carlson. You can tell who is and isn't a threat by who they go after. The useless Sean Hannity, for instance, a neocon Republican establishment shill, is left alone. No FBI raids or antifa attacks on his house.[/QUOTE]Another fact free post with lots of "they", "them", "fake news", "deep state", "alphabet agencies" et cetera.

The only "fact" in this post is that Gaetz' family is wealthy. Gaetz himself isn't, at least according to his FEC filing. Unless, of course, he took a course in situational ethics from that famous astronaut, winner of the academy best actor award and MVP of all of professional football (all three types. The European kind, the American kind and the Canadian kind): George Santos.

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2777552]They chased him out long ago (a CIS white male) lololol.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHR2dk4UNCM[/URL][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2777785]Interesting contrast in the video between wealth and poverty in Monterey County, California. Maybe Tooms moved to Bangkok because he figured he'd be right at home. I don't know if you've been there, but you can visit plush skyscrapers and shopping malls. And if you walk a few blocks you're in a shanty town. You don't have to drive like in California! Although actually the tent shanty towns in Salinas look more like Jakarta than Bangkok..[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2777879]I was in BKK for 60 days and seen many parts of the city and didn't see any shanty towns.

Now try walking in San Francisco LOS Angeles or San Diego.

Without stepping in human diarrhea, a true 3rd world shithole.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;2777991]

[b]A Bucket of Hot Diarrhea Was Randomly Poured on a Woman by a Homeless Man[/b]

[URL]https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/diarrhea-poured-on-woman-hollywood-homeless/2112762/[/URL][/QUOTE]I think you're right Marquis. There are shantytowns in Bangkok. I remember at least a couple beside canals. However, I've spent very little time in California, so I can't really compare. And I don't remember anything in Bangkok that compared to that tent city in your Monterey County video.

You know, I think I probably got it ass backwards. Tooms probably left California for Bangkok because he was tired of the slums and the riff raff, not to mention the homeless going around dumping diarrhea on people.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2777829]The very fact that the fake news and deep state are attacking Gaetz should tell you he's onto something. He doesn't need any money: he's from a super-rich family, which is part of what that false sugarbaby scam was about (it was an attempt to shake down his father). But of course the Washington alphabet agencies in conjunction with the media and democrats (the three legged deep state stool) blew up that fake story which came to nothing, just like the fake Russia collusion nonsense, the fake "insurrection" on Jan 6 in which nobody died except Ashli Babbitt, and everything else they push (while ignoring / vastly downplaying the actual insurrections by BLM / antifa which burned half the country down).

Imagine the FBI and media going hard after that Gaetz nothingburger while completely ignoring the guest list for Jeffrey Epstein's pe-do island. Really gets the noggin joggin, eh?

Gaetz is a threat to the entrenched Washington swamp and its globohomo agenda of open borders; anti-white hate and replacement; lowered living standards and destruction of the middle class under the excuse of "climate change'; crazed feminism; gay sex parades and child trannies; pe-do-files; and expensive, wasteful wars to enforce said agenda on the rest of the world.

Trump was / is also a threat to that agenda, as is Tucker Carlson. You can tell who is and isn't a threat by who they go after. The useless Sean Hannity, for instance, a neocon Republican establishment shill, is left alone. No FBI raids or antifa attacks on his house.[/QUOTE]I don't know much about Gaetz. A friend of mine who lives in his Congressional district says he's a good guy. And I don't watch enough Hannity to have formed much of an opinion.

As to Trump, I don't see how he was a threat to the Washington swamp agenda. There were two issues where he differed from the Democratic and Republican Party establishment. One, staying out of other peoples' real wars, I agreed with. The second, starting Trade Wars, I disagreed with. But Biden, the Democrats and the Republican Party appear to have followed right along with Trump on that second point. You still have protectionist rules and China bashing, promoted by both sides, that overall hurt American manufacturers, exporters and consumers. Biden's all in on that.

Trump took the lessons he learned from the bankruptcy of his casinos and how he could profit from screwing his suppliers, customers, banks and investors and carried them right on into government. Which is to say he was well prepared for the Washington Way.

Here's an example. Trump ran up huge debt in Atlantic City. And he emerged with a billion dollars in carried forward tax losses, generated by wiping out his bond holders. Why not do the same thing with our federal debt? Trump and the swamp figure they can just print money and never default. So deficits don't matter. Fuck the deficits.

Trump's notorious for lying about everything. Well, that's nothing new. For most Washington politicians that's a way of life.

As to Carlson, he's got a mixed record in my book. Often he makes sense. But he can be absurd at times. I remember a segment where he apparently was sincerely telling his viewers to report people for child abuse when they saw kids wearing masks. Actually Rachel Maddow and Carlson are pretty similar, in that they both know how to weave a story that's half fiction and make it sound believable. Carlson's a little better at projecting sanctimonious outrage though.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777817]As the headline I included stated, the Lynch report didn't just whine about the 0. 2% - 3% or so increase in already declining inflation possibly added by the ARP but, uncharacteristically for typically pro Repub MSM, also cited the historic gains in the economy thanks to Biden's American Rescue Plan, based on the data.[/QUOTE]I can't read what Lynch, the Washington Post journalist, wrote. If you looked at inflation around middle to late 2021, a hell of a lot more of it than 0.2 to 0.3% was caused by the ARP. That's just plain ridiculous. And, as I think I recall from a previous post, during the time America was experiencing significantly higher inflation than the rest of the world (due in no small part to the ARP), increases in prices of goods and services outpaced wages by about 1.5%. And the American workingman hasn't gotten that 1.5% back. He's now about 2% worse off, in terms of purchasing power, than he was before.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777817] Well, even compared to Trump flushing 2. 5+ Trillion down the shitter and only getting 1 million fewer jobs created for it at the beginning for that matter.[/QUOTE]You realize you and I are probably the only ones reading this. I keep repeatedly pointing out that the 2. 5 trillion is a fiction, that assumes the provisions of the TCJA will be extended past their termination dates, which presumably isn't going to happen as long as Democrats control the presidency or the Senate or the House. That's assuming said Democrats view those provisions like you do -- that is, any legislation passed by Republicans without Democratic support is akin to evil incarnate. The CBO and JCT estimated the amount would be around 1.5 trillion. But corporate tax revenues recently have been about equal to what the CBO or JCT estimated they would have been if the TCJA had NEVER been passed. So the amount will probably be less than 1. 5 trillion. Furthermore, the Democrats had the chance to repeal the provisions of the TCJA during 2021 and 2022, but they didn't. Nobody outside of a few borderline nut cases like Warren and Sanders want to take the federal corporate tax rate back up to 35% again.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2777817]Don't tell us Summers is so out of touch that he didn't even acknowledge that the ARP also improved the economy. LOL. The more you rhapsodise about him, the more he sounds like one of those economists who "predicted 6 of the last 2 Recessions. " At least your quote of him previously had him admitting he gets a lot of this stuff wrong. Which would also explain why Biden didn't stop the ARP in its tracks based on anything Larry Summers opined about it and wisely forged ahead with as much as he could get with all 50 Repub Senators Doing Nothing, as is their Party's usual response to Great Repub Crashes and Massive Job Destruction, and two DINOs on the Dem's half.

After this past week's Preview of Coming Attractions for how the Repub House Majority is clearly Un. Fit. To. Serve as witnessed by their international embarrassment shit show to pass the easiest vote they will have before them for the next two years, Larry Summers ought to run, not walk, to the nearest microphone and apologise for anything negative he ever said about a Dem or a Dem-proposed complex but necessary legislation that got passed while any elected Repub was within 1000 miles of the process.[/QUOTE]I don't necessarily like Larry Summers' policy preferences overall and think he's full of shit about 1/3rd of the time. I just keep throwing his name out because he's one of your guys. In fact, he's the most prominent of your guys, in the economics realm. I mention him for the same reason I preferentially post links from, say, Vanity Fair and the New York Times. So you gentlemen on the left can't criticize the source.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778092]I can't read what Lynch, the Washington Post journalist, wrote. If you looked at inflation around middle to late 2021, a hell of a lot more of it than 0.2 to 0.3% was caused by the ARP. That's just plain ridiculous. And, as I think I recall from a previous post, during the time America was experiencing significantly higher inflation than the rest of the world (due in no small part to the ARP), increases in prices of goods and services outpaced wages by about 1.5%. And the American workingman hasn't gotten that 1.5% back. He's now about 2% worse off, in terms of purchasing power, than he was before.

You realize you and I are probably the only ones reading this. I keep repeatedly pointing out that the 2. 5 trillion is a fiction, that assumes the provisions of the TCJA will be extended past their termination dates, which presumably isn't going to happen as long as Democrats control the presidency or the Senate or the House. That's assuming said Democrats view those provisions like you do -- that is, any legislation passed by Republicans without Democratic support is akin to evil incarnate. The CBO and JCT estimated the amount would be around 1.5 trillion. But corporate tax revenues recently have been about equal to what the CBO or JCT estimated they would have been if the TCJA had NEVER been passed. So the amount will probably be less than 1. 5 trillion. Furthermore, the Democrats had the chance to repeal the provisions of the TCJA during 2021 and 2022, but they didn't. Nobody outside of a few borderline nut cases like Warren and Sanders want to take the federal corporate tax rate back up to 35% again.

I don't necessarily like Larry Summers' policy preferences overall and think he's full of shit about 1/3rd of the time. I just keep throwing his name out because he's one of your guys. In fact, he's the most prominent of your guys, in the economics realm. I mention him for the same reason I preferentially post links from, say, Vanity Fair and the New York Times. So you gentlemen on the left can't criticize the source.[/QUOTE]So you and Larry are outraged that Biden's $1. 9 Trillion ARP contributed mightily to recovering Repub Trump's Economic Crash, creating Millions upon Millions of jobs, higher wages, and to reviving collapsed global supply-chains but can't think of anything to criticise about your rosy $1. 5 Trillion scenario version of Repub Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that produced at least a Million FEWER jobs in the three years with it than in the previous three years without it and added virtually nothing else to the USA or global economy. Got it.

If you can't read the WaPo report, the internet is full of freely readable reports questioning this favorite Repub notion that Biden's ARP was pure inflation evil and destroyed the USA economy.

Here is one:

[B]Stimulus Spending a Factor, But Far From Whole Story on Inflation[/B]

[URL]https://www.factcheck.org/2022/06/stimulus-spending-a-factor-but-far-from-whole-story-on-inflation/[/URL]

[QUOTE]Economists cite several reasons for high inflation in the United States, starting with the unprecedented circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic. But TV ads in midterm races across the country blame one culprit: stimulus spending by President Joe Bidens administration.

That spending the American Rescue Plan, enacted in March 2021 has been a factor and not an unimportant one, George Selgin, senior fellow and director emeritus of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute, told us, echoing the view of other economists. But it certainly has not been the whole story.[/QUOTE]And, from that same link, here are other highly respected economists, many would argue some who get it right more often than Larry Summers does, addressing an estimate range and assessment for the ARP's contribution to Trump's Pandemic Inflation at its peak:

[QUOTE]Economists have said the American Rescue Plan a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief measure that included $1,400 checks to most Americans; expanded unemployment benefits; money for schools, small businesses and states has contributed to high inflation, though estimates vary on how much. [b]Jason Furman, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama and now a Harvard University professor, told us his estimate is 1 to 4 percentage points and when pressed for one number, he uses the midpoint of 2.5. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moodys whose work is often cited by the White House said the impact of the stimulus measure now "has largely faded."[/b][/QUOTE]BTW, my statement was that many estimates are in a range from "0. 2 - 3% or so", as is reflected by the quotes I highlighted above as well, not 0. 2% to 0. 3%.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2777829]Gaetz. . . doesn't need any money: he's from a super-rich family.[/QUOTE]That's brilliant. Really brilliant! Now I understand why Donald Trump is such a selfless altruist. Thank you for bringing it up to our attention. You never disappoint.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778083]I think you're right Marquis. There are shantytowns in Bangkok. I remember at least a couple beside canals. However, I've spent very little time in California, so I can't really compare. And I don't remember anything in Bangkok that compared to that tent city in your Monterey County video.

You know, I think I probably got it ass backwards. Tooms probably left California for Bangkok because he was tired of the slums and the riff raff, not to mention the homeless going around dumping diarrhea on people.[/QUOTE]It is funny all these Dems talk about the poor and Republicans loving the rich, but the truth is they have the state that is the most expensive and hurts the poor the most. If California passed a law saying no mortgages higher than $300,000, the real estate market would crash, and people could afford homes. If you really want to talk about the ultimate fleecing of the poor, the fact that high end mortgages are backed by the tax payer is a good place to start. It makes the home owners rich and cities flush with property taxes while fleecing the poor or middle class who are not yet not in houses.

What is so bad is this causes inflation in housing not just in California but other states as the people in California move out. And with the link MDS showed, it is even filtering into Mexico.

If Dems are so for the poor, then why is it so fucking expensive in blue states?

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2778113]So you and Larry are outraged that Biden's $1. 9 Trillion ARP contributed mightily to recovering Repub Trump's Economic Crash....,[/QUOTE]I haven't had time to read your entire link but have no problems with the George Selgin and Jason Furman quotes. Furman has more or less echoed Summers on this topic.

By June of 2022, when the article came out, the effects of the excessive monetary stimulus from the ARP had started to wane. But the workingman was (and is) still behind the eight ball:

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778092]If you looked at inflation around middle to late 2021, a hell of a lot more of it than 0.2 to 0.3% was caused by the ARP. That's just plain ridiculous. And, as I think I recall from a previous post, during the time America was experiencing significantly higher inflation than the rest of the world (due in no small part to the ARP), increases in prices of goods and services outpaced wages by about 1.5%. And the American workingman hasn't gotten that 1.5% back. He's now about 2% worse off, in terms of purchasing power, than he was before.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2778140]
If Dems are so for the poor, then why is it so fucking expensive in blue states?[/QUOTE]Good question. A glance at this would indicate blue states on average are more unequal in terms of income than red states:

[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income_inequality[/URL]

As you have stated, many Democratic politicians are hypocrites.

Elvis, So we're on the same page, these are the five states with the highest inequality in income,

1. New York
2. Connecticut
3. Louisiana
4. Mississippi
5. California

Puerto Rico would be number 1 and the District of Columbia would be number 3 if they were included. As you probably know, it's difficult for a Republican to pick up 7% of the vote in D.C.

The red states with higher inequality are mostly in the south, and so suffer from the legacy of Democratic Party leadership in the 1960's and earlier.

Here are the five with the lowest income inequality, all red states,

50. Utah
49. Idaho
48. Wyoming
47. South Dakota
46. Alaska

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778181]Elvis, So we're on the same page, these are the five states with the highest inequality in income,

1. New York
2. Connecticut
3. Louisiana
4. Mississippi
5. California

If we were including territories along with states, Puerto Rico would be number 1 and the District of Columbia would be number 3.

The red states with higher inequality are mostly in the south, and so suffer from the legacy of Democratic Party leadership in the 1960's and earlier.

Here are the five with the lowest inequality, all red states,

1. Utah
2. Idaho
3. Wyoming
4. South Dakota
5. Alaska[/QUOTE]You mean there are practically no jobs available in any of those 5 "lowest income inequality" Red states that justify paying the employee as much for getting it done as in New York, California, Connecticut, etc?

Shocking.

I thought Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry was always worried his Deputy Barney Fife might move to Hootervile or Pixly for a better paying job at the A&P and force him to deputise Otis the Drunk to replace him.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778163]Good question. A glance at this would indicate blue states on average are more unequal in terms of income than red states:

[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income_inequality[/URL]

As you have stated, many Democratic politicians are hypocrites.[/QUOTE]From the article you referenced. "The South, the tri-state area around New York City and California tend to have more income inequality, while the Upper Midwest, the Northwest and Northern New England are relatively more equal. ".

Who knew that "the South" were "blue states"? If you go back to the 2016 and 2020 Federal Elections, I'll bet you'll find that "the South" in general voted for Donnie the Dumbass.

In addition " States with better financial development tend to be more unequal than those with worse financial opportunities, but the trends go in the opposite directions for high-income and low-income states.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2778219]From the article you referenced. "The South, the tri-state area around New York City and California tend to have more income inequality, while the Upper Midwest, the Northwest and Northern New England are relatively more equal. ".

Who knew that "the South" were "blue states"? If you go back to the 2016 and 2020 Federal Elections, I'll bet you'll find that "the South" in general voted for Donnie the Dumbass.

In addition " States with better financial development tend to be more unequal than those with worse financial opportunities, but the trends go in the opposite directions for high-income and low-income states.[/QUOTE]Take the Tiny Challenge. Define a blue state as one that Biden AND Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and 2020. Define a red state as one that Trump won in both elections. Kick out all the rest. Get populations for the blue and red states. Multiply each state's population by each state's Gini coefficient, from the wikipedia link. Then sum for the blue states and separately for the red states. Divide by the total population of blue and red states respectively. I bet that the weighted average Gini coefficient for the blue states will be higher than the red states. In fact, if I'm wrong, I'll reward you with the Tiny Triple Combo:

One hour with a masagista from what I deem to be the finest estetica in Jalisco
One lunch at my favorite restaurant in Jalisco
One bottle (small) of Clase Azul Reposado tequila

I'm assuming here based on your handle that you spend a lot of time in Puerto Vallarta. If so, I'm in your neck of the woods several times a year so can comply with my promise. But it doesn't really matter. Because if you take the Tiny Challenge, YOU WILL LOOSE.

The irony is that listening to New York and California Democratic politicians, and given that this is the United STATES of America, where the states are free to impose whatever type of taxation and social welfare systems they wish, you'd think those two states would have Gini coefficients similar to the European social welfare states. But they don't. Not by a long shot. Those politicians may just be pulling the wool over the public's eyes.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2778193]You mean there are practically no jobs available in any of those 5 "lowest income inequality" Red states that justify paying the employee as much for getting it done as in New York, California, Connecticut, etc?

Shocking.

I thought Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry was always worried his Deputy Barney Fife might move to Hootervile or Pixly for a better paying job at the A&P and force him to deputise Otis the Drunk to replace him.[/QUOTE]After adjusting for purchasing power, Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, Utah and Idaho rank 4th, 8th, 17th, 43rd, and 45th in terms of per capita income. That's a pretty good cross section of America. California is 22nd and New York is 7th. New York is 7th because of the rent seeking finance industry, which sucks money out of the rest of the country while providing little in return. Same for #1 Connecticut.

Interesting argument btw, very atypical for someone who's left of center. Most Democrats would reject the idea that inequality results in higher per capita or median income. But to be honest, you might be on to something.


[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_adjusted_per_capita_personal_income[/URL]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2778030]Another fact free post with lots of "they", "them", "fake news", "deep state", "alphabet agencies" et cetera.

The only "fact" in this post is that Gaetz' family is wealthy. Gaetz himself isn't, at least according to his FEC filing. Unless, of course, he took a course in situational ethics from that famous astronaut, winner of the academy best actor award and MVP of all of professional football (all three types. The European kind, the American kind and the Canadian kind): George Santos.[/QUOTE]Another goofy post which addressed none of the points at hand. Let's try just one: why did the democrats, media and FBI (better known as, yes, the Washington deep state) make such a fuss over the Gaetz nothingburger which came to zero, while completely ignoring the high-level media / hollywood / democrat figures on the guest list of the island of Jeffrey Epstein, an acknowledged pe-do?

Or is calling Epstein a pe-do a "conspiracy theory"?

"Alphabet agencies" is a well-known term to describe the plethora of Washington intelligence and (selective: see above) law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, etc. Glad to educate you, not for the first time.

P.S. Imagine criticising George Santos for calling himself "Jew-ish" when one of the leading figures of the democrat party, Senator Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren would be teaching elementary school if she hadn't pretended to be a native American to get ahead.

Or Senator "the Nang Dick" Blumenthal, who lied about having served in Vietnam: stolen valor is far more despicable than anything Santos said, but for some reason the media never bring it up. Why is that?

Or "Vice-President" Kamala Harris, who would be chasing unpaid parking tickets in Fresno if she hadn't chased down the married mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown and hit it so good he gave her multiple undeserved promotions.

Perhaps look a little closer to home next time.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778089]

As to Trump, I don't see how he was a threat to the Washington swamp agenda. There were two issues where he differed from the Democratic and Republican Party establishment. One, staying out of other peoples' real wars, I agreed with. The second, starting Trade Wars, I disagreed with. [/QUOTE]You're forgetting his actions to reduce illegal immigration. This is actually more important than anything else. White Americans (other than fat single feminist catladies) won't vote for the democrats' anti-American, anti-white policies, but third world immigrants vote massively in favor of them. It's a simple matter of arithmetic. The reason California went from solidly Republican in the Nixon / Reagan days to solidly blue today doesn't have anything to do with the quality of arguments made by the likes of Gavin "The Joker" Newsom, but because the state went from 90% white 50 years ago to 40% white today.

If they manage to replace us like that in the whole country, it's over. Corrupt, one party rule forever, with increasing repression and persecution of white people, a la South Africa. Hell, they're already talking about giving a quarter million to every black person in California because of something that was abolished over 160 years ago. Who's going to pay for that?

As for Tucker Carlson, he is very useful in terms of showing what the democrat / globohomo establishment are trying to do to children in public schools: brainwashing them with homosexual and tranny propaganda at a very early age; attempting to persuade them that they are trannies and need to be sterilised and mutilated. He's spoken several times to the person behind the excellent LibsofTikTok twitter account, which simply reposts what liberals themselves are saying and doing. They are both doing God's work.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2778134]That's brilliant. Really brilliant! Now I understand why Donald Trump is such a selfless altruist.[/QUOTE]What is the point of your post? (Or indeed you, but we'll leave that for another time).

Are you attempting to claim that Trump became president to get richer? If so, that is quite possibly the most ignorant assertion you have ever made, which is saying a lot.

Before he ran, Trump had a hugely successful TV show and was a media darling. He had a licence to print money. When he ran, he lost the show, he lost many of his deals, and became the target of endless negative propaganda from the fake news media. In addition, his campaign was largely self-funded, at least before he became the nominee.

There is no doubt whatsoever that had Donald Trump continued on his path without getting into politics, he would be significantly wealthier than he is now. He knowingly sacrificed that wealth to help America and the American people. That is the very definition of an American hero.

If you're looking for people who got into politics to enrich themselves, try looking into how Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Maxine Waters got so rich on a government salary. Let me know what you find (after you get back to me about why the media, democrats and FBI went after the Gaetz nothingburger while ignoring the Epstein island guest list).

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778181]Elvis, So we're on the same page, these are the five states with the highest inequality in income,

1. New York
2. Connecticut
3. Louisiana
4. Mississippi
5. California

Puerto Rico would be number 1 and the District of Columbia would be number 3 if they were included. As you probably know, it's difficult for a Republican to pick up 7% of the vote in D.C.

The red states with higher inequality are mostly in the south, and so suffer from the legacy of Democratic Party leadership in the 1960's and earlier.

Here are the five with the lowest income inequality, all red states,

50. Utah
49. Idaho
48. Wyoming
47. South Dakota
46. Alaska[/QUOTE]Not a coincidence that the top five are all very "diverse" while the bottom five are homogeneous, filled with heritage white Americans. It's a matter of human nature, as well as race and IQ.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778518]You're forgetting his actions to reduce illegal immigration. This is actually more important than anything else. White Americans (other than fat single feminist catladies) won't vote for the democrats' anti-American, anti-white policies, but third world immigrants vote massively in favor of them. It's a simple matter of arithmetic. The reason California went from solidly Republican in the Nixon / Reagan days to solidly blue today doesn't have anything to do with the quality of arguments made by the likes of Gavin "The Joker" Newsom, but because the state went from 90% white 50 years ago to 40% white today.[/QUOTE]Historically, a majority of Cuban Americans and Vietnamese Americans have voted for Republicans. Most of the people coming across the southern border today are from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, that is, from socialist countries. They've had to put up with the economic lunacy of people like Chavez, Castro and Ortega. And they probably see some similarities between the preferred policies of those leaders and those of Bernie Sanders and other progressives. Not to mention some progressive Democrats have served as apologists for totalitarian socialists. So I suspect this current crop of immigrants may be different, more likely to vote for Republicans.

My big concern is that that there are a lot of hot Cuban and Venezuelan strippers, and it would be a shame if they were deported.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778522]What is the point of your post? (Or indeed you, but we'll leave that for another time).[/QUOTE]Yes, please for the love of god, leave "the point of ME" for another time, I'm begging of you!

The point of my post, however, if I must spell it out for you (and it seems like I must, unfortunately) was that people who come from rich families still care about money a great deal.

In fact, my delusional friend, no one is as hungry for money as people who come from money.

Paraphrasing The Godfather, children can afford to be nave, men don't. Snap out of it.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778563]Historically, a majority of Cuban Americans and Vietnamese Americans have voted for Republicans. Most of the people coming across the southern border today are from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, that is, from socialist countries. They've had to put up with the economic lunacy of people like Chavez, Castro and Ortega. And they probably see some similarities between the preferred policies of those leaders and those of Bernie Sanders and other progressives. Not to mention some progressive Democrats have served as apologists for totalitarian socialists. So I suspect this current crop of immigrants may be different, more likely to vote for Republicans.

My big concern is that that there are a lot of hot Cuban and Venezuelan strippers, and it would be a shame if they were deported.[/QUOTE]Rather than whining and playing the tired and spurious white victimization card, people like Chris need to win these immigrants over to a conservative worldview. It's done all the time. This fatalism also ignores the reality of all the lazy, low IQ, criminal white losers in our country, much of those dipshits that invaded the Capital a case in point. Many also traveled there via government handouts, Covid small business relief swindles.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778518]You're forgetting his actions to reduce illegal immigration. This is actually more important than anything else. White Americans (other than fat single feminist catladies) won't vote for the democrats' anti-American, anti-white policies, but third world immigrants vote massively in favor of them. It's a simple matter of arithmetic. The reason California went from solidly Republican in the Nixon / Reagan days to solidly blue today doesn't have anything to do with the quality of arguments made by the likes of Gavin "The Joker" Newsom, but because the state went from 90% white 50 years ago to 40% white today.

If they manage to replace us like that in the whole country, it's over. Corrupt, one party rule forever, with increasing repression and persecution of white people, a la South Africa. Hell, they're already talking about giving a quarter million to every black person in California because of something that was abolished over 160 years ago. Who's going to pay for that?

As for Tucker Carlson, he is very useful in terms of showing what the democrat / globohomo establishment are trying to do to children in public schools: brainwashing them with homosexual and tranny propaganda at a very early age; attempting to persuade them that they are trannies and need to be sterilised and mutilated. He's spoken several times to the person behind the excellent LibsofTikTok twitter account, which simply reposts what liberals themselves are saying and doing. They are both doing God's work.[/QUOTE]Really? Trump thought Repubs from all those Red States were "disgusting", looked "very trashy", "cheap and poor", which made him look bad:

[B]Pence's former top aide says Trump called the coronavirus 'a good thing' because he didn't like shaking hands with 'disgusting' supporters[/B]

[URL]https://www.businessinsider.com/video-aide-trump-didnt-want-to-shake-hands-disgusting-supporters-2020-9[/URL]

[B]Former White House Press Secretary Told Jan. 6 Committee That Trump Said Capitol Rioters 'Looked Very Trashy'[/B]

[URL]https://people.com/politics/former-white-house-press-secretary-told-jan-6-committee-trump-thought-rioters-looked-very-trashy/[/URL]

[B]Trump was angry at Capitol mob only because they looked cheap and poor: report[/B]

[URL]https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-was-angry-at-capitol-mob-only-because-they-looked-cheap-and-poor-report/[/URL]

[QUOTE]"Trump was apoplectic in embarrassment because the white trash mob on screen made him look bad, the report said.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778513]P.S. Imagine criticising George Santos for calling himself "Jew-ish" when one of the leading figures of the democrat party, Senator Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren would be teaching elementary school if she hadn't pretended to be a native American to get ahead.

Or Senator "the Nang Dick" Blumenthal, who lied about having served in Vietnam: stolen valor is far more despicable than anything Santos said, but for some reason the media never bring it up. Why is that?

Or "Vice-President" Kamala Harris, who would be chasing unpaid parking tickets in Fresno if she hadn't chased down the married mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown and hit it so good he gave her multiple undeserved promotions.

Perhaps look a little closer to home next time.[/QUOTE]I didn't know that about Blumenthal.

You left out our Plagiarizer and Chief, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

This is the first thing that pops up when you Google "Plagiarism Joe Biden", from the University of California Santa Barbara web site, and it's a Trump campaign press release.

[URL]https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/campaign-press-release-copy-that-joe-bidens-long-record-plagiarism[/URL]

But glancing over it, I knew I made the right decision when I voted for Jo Jorgensen for president. Biden's downright nutty, to try to get away with all that. He even made up some fiction about having ancestors who "worked the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours. " He pulled that from Neil Kinnock, a British politician. Biden never even had ancestors who worked in coal mines.

Biden may be worse than Santos. And he's president of the United States of America and the leader of the free world. Santos is a nobody.

Yes, despite what the main stream media would have you believe, there's no shortage of kooks and liars among the politicians who call themselves Democrats.

This is well documented, about Biden. Our Democrat friends should Google it if they don't believe me.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778513]Another goofy post which addressed none of the points at hand. Let's try just one: why did the democrats, media and FBI (better known as, yes, the Washington deep state) make such a fuss over the Gaetz nothingburger which came to zero, while completely ignoring the high-level media / hollywood / democrat figures on the guest list of the island of Jeffrey Epstein, an acknowledged pe-do?

Or is calling Epstein a pe-do a "conspiracy theory"?

"Alphabet agencies" is a well-known term to describe the plethora of Washington intelligence and (selective: see above) law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, etc. Glad to educate you, not for the first time..[/QUOTE]How can anybody address your "points"? They are all, except for Gaetz' family wealth, without substance. Every assertion that you made in your fact-free post was unsupported. Every assertion was only an opinion. See this writeup [URL]https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-anti-vaxxers-pounced-on-damar-hamlins-collapse[/URL] "Part of the trick is to cast conspiracy theorists and people who believe them as victims of shadowy forces. The source wants to show you the proof, but can't, because his employers are in on it. The government and mainstream media "knows" the conspiracy is real, but they prevent you from finding out by punishing anyone who merely asks about it. " And that's you to a "T".

Have other people lied? Sure? Have they done it to the extent of Santos? Nope. In fact, anybody who fudged their resume as much as Santos did would have been fired in a heartbeat. In fact you (I believe) have portrayed yourself as a business owner. Maybe it wasn't you but certainly other members of the Moron Brigade have portrayed themselves as such. Would you, or any other business owner, have kept on an employee who lied about: where they went to High School, where they went to college, where they previously worked, how much property they owned, what their heritage is, that their employees died in the Pulse shootings? No, you wouldn't have. And if you say you would have, you are as full of shit as Santos. [URL]https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/01/the-everything-guide-to-george-santoss-lies.html[/URL].

Your globohomo, anti-woke, anti-LGBTQ, America for white Americans only bullshit was old before you spouted it. It is your opinion and you are entitled to it. But don't expect anyone with a brain to be on your side.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778518]You're forgetting his actions to reduce illegal immigration. This is actually more important than anything else. White Americans (other than fat single feminist catladies) won't vote for the democrats' anti-American, anti-white policies, but third world immigrants vote massively in favor of them. It's a simple matter of arithmetic. The reason California went from solidly Republican in the Nixon / Reagan days to solidly blue today doesn't have anything to do with the quality of arguments made by the likes of Gavin "The Joker" Newsom, but because the state went from 90% white 50 years ago to 40% white today.

If they manage to replace us like that in the whole country, it's over. Corrupt, one party rule forever, with increasing repression and persecution of white people, a la South Africa. Hell, they're already talking about giving a quarter million to every black person in California because of something that was abolished over 160 years ago. Who's going to pay for that?

As for Tucker Carlson, he is very useful in terms of showing what the democrat / globohomo establishment are trying to do to children in public schools: brainwashing them with homosexual and tranny propaganda at a very early age; attempting to persuade them that they are trannies and need to be sterilised and mutilated. He's spoken several times to the person behind the excellent LibsofTikTok twitter account, which simply reposts what liberals themselves are saying and doing. They are both doing God's work.[/QUOTE]California is 40% white? Not according to the US Census which puts the figure at 71.1% [URL]https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/CA[/URL].

Of course, you picked the lowest possible figure of 40% because those folks are the "white Americans" that you are always crowing about. The 71.1% figure includes the Hispanics (who think of themselves as white) that you despise so much.

Ahhhh, yes, if "they" manage to replace us? Who is "they" exactly? All of those people who are uneducated and rapists and drug dealers but are coming for your job? Are you a ditchdigger? Or a busboy? If so, then yes, immigrants might be coming for your dead-end job. Otherwise, no uneducated immigrant will become a doctor or an EE or any other job that you are sooooo worried about them taking.

As for Tucker "even his attorneys argued that nobody in their right mind should believe a word he says because he is full of shit" Carlson, the larger question is: why do [B]you[/B] believe him? His attorneys said that nobody in their right mind should believe him. But you do. I wonder why that is.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778563]Historically, a majority of Cuban Americans and Vietnamese Americans have voted for Republicans. Most of the people coming across the southern border today are from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, that is, from socialist countries. They've had to put up with the economic lunacy of people like Chavez, Castro and Ortega. And they probably see some similarities between the preferred policies of those leaders and those of Bernie Sanders and other progressives. Not to mention some progressive Democrats have served as apologists for totalitarian socialists. So I suspect this current crop of immigrants may be different, more likely to vote for Republicans.

My big concern is that that there are a lot of hot Cuban and Venezuelan strippers, and it would be a shame if they were deported.[/QUOTE]The Florida Cubans are an exception. They were among the smartest, highest IQ and most creative people in Cuba, who fled a genuine communist tyranny run by a violent, maniacal, capricious, all-powerful dictator as a personality cult, because they realized there was no way for them to maximize their talents under that regime. They also took genuine risk by coming across the ocean on rickety rafts.

The Latin Americans pouring across the Biden's open border today, by contrast, are the dregs of their societies. There is no comparison between Chavez's Venezuela, where much of the media was against Chavez and many wealthy people openly opposed him and a capitalist system still operated, and Castro's Cuba, where the entire media was in lockstep, anyone who spoke out against him disappeared, and the only serious wealth was in the hands of the dictator and his apparatchiks.

Most people in mainland Latin America are doing fine and have no wish to emigrate. The illegals are the useless, low IQ doofuses who lack the wherewithal to make anything of themselves at home, who see the vast Uncle Sam welfare teat and potential to do unskilled labor off the books for ten times what they can get in their own countries. They don't even take much risk as there are various Soros-funded NGOs supporting them on their journey.

As for the Vietnamese, again, they are a high IQ people so most of them don't need the welfare programs and racial grievance industry offered by the democrats and fake media. That said, it's still around 50/50.

The best immigration policy is the one America had for the middle half of the last century (not coincidentally, the time it was at its greatest): almost zero.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2778594]The point of my post, however, if I must spell it out for you (and it seems like I must, unfortunately) was that people who come from rich families still care about money a great deal.
[/QUOTE]And I'll ask again, as you typically avoided the question last time: do you think Donald Trump is richer now than he would have been if he had never entered politics in 2015 and had instead continued to focus on his TV show, his businesses, and his many positive media appearances?

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2778685]Pence's former top aide said......Former White House Press Secretary Told Jan. 6 Committee.....the report said..... [/QUOTE]Ah, the media says that some Washington swamp creatures told them something about Trump. Must be true then.

To get back to reality, how about you have a go at why the democrats / media / alphabet agencies went so hard after the Gaetz nothingburger, yet haven't looked into the guest list on the island of Jeffrey Epstein, an acknowledged pe-do?

Why was the trial of his procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, barely covered? Compare the intricate media reporting on every detail of, say, the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard trial with the absence of information about Maxwell. Why is the only high-profile figure who has gone down over this Prince Andrew of Great Britain? No investigations into any American guests of Epstein? Why, oh why?

Kinda like asking why leftists who spent a year violently burning, looting and attacking police and federal buildings in cities across the country, causing billions of dollars of damage and tens of deaths, are allowed to skate, while the alphabet agencies do the biggest investigation in history to track down and raid thousands of grandmas who walked through open doors into the People's House on Jan 6, took some photos and went home.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778697]I didn't know that about Blumenthal.

You left out our Plagiarizer and Chief, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

This is the first thing that pops up when you Google "Plagiarism Joe Biden", from the University of California Santa Barbara web site, and it's a Trump campaign press release.

[URL]https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/campaign-press-release-copy-that-joe-bidens-long-record-plagiarism[/URL]

But glancing over it, I knew I made the right decision when I voted for Jo Jorgensen for president. Biden's downright nutty, to try to get away with all that. He even made up some fiction about having ancestors who "worked the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours. " He pulled that from Neil Kinnock, a British politician. Biden never even had ancestors who worked in coal mines.

Biden may be worse than Santos. And he's president of the United States of America and the leader of the free world. Santos is a nobody.

Yes, despite what the main stream media would have you believe, there's no shortage of kooks and liars among the politicians who call themselves Democrats.

This is well documented, about Biden. Our Democrat friends should Google it if they don't believe me.[/QUOTE]Good post.

The fact that you, clearly an intelligent and knowledgeable person, didn't even know about Blumenthal's lies and stolen valor over Vietnam is an indictment of the truly egregious bias of the mainstream fake news media.

If a right-wing figure had lied as he did, it would be brought up every time they were mentioned in the news. Children would think their name was "Vietnam Liar Senator Bla McBlaface".

In fact, the New York Times and others have acknowledged Blumenthal lied. Once. Tucked away at the bottom of page 78, and then never mentioned again.

That way, when challenged about their bias, they can claim "no, look. We reported it!" But of course it was "reported" once in an obscure manner and then forgotten, meaning that the majority of even well-informed people are probably not aware of it.

Ditto for Biden. The fake news will say that they reported Biden's lies when he spewed them. And then never mention them again. Lies of obfuscation and omission.

Of course, they are getting even worse these days, with the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story which would have swung the election to Trump even with the vast amount of pro-Biden mail-in fraud that allowed them to steal it.

The Hunter Biden laptop story is a perfect microcosm of the parts of the Washington deep state working in conjunction. Mainstream and social media completely blacklist the story, to the extent that Twitter and Facebook actually blocked links of it from being posted, and Youtube prevented videos about it showing up in people's feeds. Meanwhile, the so-called intelligence alphabet agencies put out a fake statement about "Russian disinformation". And finally, the democrats and establishment RINOs refuse to hold the above to account in getting to the truth.

Later, after the election, it dribbles out that in fact the laptop was entirely genuine, but hey, whatever. Look over there, goyim!

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2778724]How can anybody address your blablabla[/QUOTE]More turgid wordsludge from PVMonger. Some things never change.

Is the Hunter Biden laptop a "conspiracy theory"? Even worse, was the coverup of the Hunter Biden laptop, in which alphabet agencies made noises about "RUSSIA!" and we now know, thanks to Elon Musk, that Big Tech worked with govt operatives to prevent the information from being transmitted, all a "conspiracy theory"?

Nope. It was fact. All happened.

Our side actually wants to get information out for people to see it. That's why LibsofTikTok is so popular with normal people, yet so unhingedly hated by the left: all she does is repost leftists saying openly what they plan to do (usually with regard to sexualising and / or mutilating children, which is a troubling obsession of theirs).

The censorship, as we are seeing from the Twitter Files, all comes from the left. Why do you think it is that your side is the one that wants to silence people and restrict information?

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778815]More turgid wordsludge from PVMonger. Some things never change.

Is the Hunter Biden laptop a "conspiracy theory"? Even worse, was the coverup of the Hunter Biden laptop, in which alphabet agencies made noises about "RUSSIA!" and we now know, thanks to Elon Musk, that Big Tech worked with govt operatives to prevent the information from being transmitted, all a "conspiracy theory"?

Nope. It was fact. All happened.

Our side actually wants to get information out for people to see it. That's why LibsofTikTok is so popular with normal people, yet so unhingedly hated by the left: all she does is repost leftists saying openly what they plan to do (usually with regard to sexualising and / or mutilating children, which is a troubling obsession of theirs).

The censorship, as we are seeing from the Twitter Files, all comes from the left. Why do you think it is that your side is the one that wants to silence people and restrict information?[/QUOTE]I have no love for Hunter Biden. If he's guilty of something, charge him and move on. Don't try to compare anything he's done with what Trump and his cabal have done.

[QUOTE=MiamiSammy;2778820]I have no love for Hunter Biden. If he's guilty of something, charge him and move on. Don't try to compare anything he's done with what Trump and his cabal have done.[/QUOTE]Low information reply.

First, the point was not merely the Hunter laptop, but the manner in which the fake news media, social media, and government agencies colluded in breach of the 1st Amendment to censor and silence the true story.

Second, it isn't about Hunter. He is just a druggie doofus. It is about how he was used as a bagman by his corrupt father to enrich himself by peddling influence. Ever wonder how Biden got so rich after a life as a government employee? "Ten percent for the Big Guy"! There is literally footage of Biden as VP boasting about threatening to withhold aid to Ukraine unless they fired a prosecutor investigating Hunter's corruption. And sure enough, they fired the guy!

If Trump and his family had done anything remotely as criminally egregious as the Bidens, they would all be in prison cells now.

Unfortunately, as we have seen with the failure to prosecute the violent far-left antifa / BLM terrorists who spent a year burning cities, attacking federal buildings (including the White House with the President inside), courthouses and police and causing billions of dollars in damage, contrasted with the unhinged Washington witchhunt to round up and jail every last grandma who wandered through open doors into the Capitol on Jan 6 (with the notable exception of Ray Epps), the "Justice" Department has become grossly politicised as in a banana republic and is no longer fit for purpose.

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2778616]people like Chris need to win these immigrants over to a conservative worldview. It's done all the time. [/QUOTE]It's done all the time? Really? Which immigrant group is majority conservative other than the Florida Cubans, whom I've addressed previously?

You can't convert low IQ people to a conservative worldview because they can't compete in a capitalist market. Hence they want government welfare handouts, affirmative action, racial grievance etc: the core democrat program.

Most of the illegals pouring over Biden's open border are from third world countries with an average IQ well below 90; and they are the dumbest idiots who can't get a job in those third world countries so they are below average even there. The vast majority will be no good for anything but welfare or menial labor, and the effect of millions of them will simply continue dragging America down to the third world.

[URL]https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country[/URL]

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778797]do you think Donald Trump is richer now than he would have been if he had never entered politics in 2015 and had instead continued to focus on his TV show, his businesses, and his many positive media appearances?[/QUOTE]Well, we have his tax returns from the time he started his campaign up through his last full year in office. Here's his income or loss by year. Losses are in parentheses.

2015: (31,700,000)
2016: (32,200,000)
2017: (12,800,000)
2018: 24,400,000
2019: 4,440,000
2020: (4,690,000)

Net loss for 2015 to 2020: (52,550,000)

[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/trump-income-tax-returns-detailed-in-new-report-.html[/URL]

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778833]Most of the illegals pouring over Biden's open border are from third world countries with an average IQ well below 90; and they are the dumbest idiots who can't get a job in those third world countries so they are below average even there. The vast majority will be no good for anything but welfare or menial labor, and the effect of millions of them will simply continue dragging America down to the third world.

[URL]https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country[/URL][/QUOTE]I don't think illegal immigrants are necessarily stupid. But it seems to me that it would make a lot more sense to give priority to people with skills who will contribute the most to America, like nurses, engineers, doctors, mechanics and the like. That's what places like Canada and Australia do. They have a points system. If you get enough points, by virtue of skills, education, age, knowledge of English, etc., you get in. Instead, yes, we have too many unskilled people who enter illegally. And too many unskilled family members of immigrants who became citizens.

Please note that table dancing is a highly skilled profession. Latina strippers should be given priority. And also anyone who promises to vote for Republicans and Libertarians.

A guest worker program, that would not lead to citizenship or a right to reside permanently in the USA, might be a good idea for unskilled foreigners. Right now there are a lot of jobs here that Americans just don't want to do. Although that will change after the Biden Recession.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778857]Well, we have his tax returns from the time he started his campaign up through his last full year in office. Here's his income or loss by year. Losses are in parentheses.

2015: (31,700,000)
2016: (32,200,000)
2017: (12,800,000)
2018: 24,400,000
2019: 4,440,000
2020: (4,690,000)

Net loss for 2015 to 2020: (52,550,000)

[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/trump-income-tax-returns-detailed-in-new-report-.html[/URL][/QUOTE]And that one big income year of 2018 was mostly due to his sale of the last of his daddy's properties he inherited:

[B]Tax returns show Trump made millions from fathers legacy while his own properties flopped[/B]

[URL]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-returns-show-trump-made-224054562.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]The entirety of his income from real estate sales in 2018 actually came from properties passed down to Mr Trump through his father, Fred Trump. The bulk of it came from one sale, the May 2018 sale of a nearly 6,000-unit housing complex in Brooklyn known as Starrett City. It netted $905m on the market, of which Mr Trump reported roughly $14.8m in profits.[/QUOTE]After he sold the last of his daddy's properties and some of his own failed properties, even as dumb as he is he knew the jig was up for him being tagged one of the worst businessmen of all time, should anyone take a gander at his tax returns.

That must have been around the time he decided to set the foundation for him leading an America-hating, Cop-killing Insurrection if he gets his ass kicked in 2020, which he did, and whip up his Big Lie about the election being stolen from him, a ploy he likely felt confident would easily con Repub hillbillies he had been "disgusted" by at his MAGA rallies into sending him large chunks of their entitlement checks.

The dude needed money. Badly.

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2778616]Rather than whining and playing the tired and spurious white victimization card, people like Chris need to win these immigrants over to a conservative worldview. It's done all the time. This fatalism also ignores the reality of all the lazy, low IQ, criminal white losers in our country, much of those dipshits that invaded the Capital a case in point. Many also traveled there via government handouts, Covid small business relief swindles.[/QUOTE]Tiny's right. No other misplaced Repub policy is as idiotic as their crusade against immigration. To Cubans and Nicaraguans I can add Russians, Ukrainians, and pretty much all other post-Soviet ethnic groups, plus Vietnamese, Chinese, and many others who come to the States to escape from communist or leftist regimes. For better or worse (worse!) the majority of these people are predisposed to conservativism, since they are trying to move as far from the left as humanly possible.

Funnily, a lot of Mexicans and other Latin America immigrants are natural conservatives as well, but that probably has more to do with their Catholic values than politics.

This dumb belief that every immigrant must be a catch for the Democratic party (probably because they're poor when they get here, LOL) is truly remarkable.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778859] Right now there are a lot of jobs here that Americans just don't want to do.[/QUOTE]It's been that way for ages and will only get worse as our entitled younger generations can't get their noses out of their smartphones long enough to flip a burger, mow a lawn, pick fruit, or install a roof on a hot day. Yes we have long needed unskilled labor from abroad and need more. Your idea about only allowing in doctors and nurses and the like is preposterous. Get out of your computer chair and typing essays here long enough to get out and have a look around and maybe you'll begin to get it. Wink.

P.S. It's equally silly to blame Biden for multi-causal economic woes that are consistent and worldwide. That notion has already been refuted here many times, but that seldom stops one from repeating the same talking points ad nauseam. That's probably the most popular logical fallacy employed in internet debates and politics generally, though in this hooker forum the entire list is employed, and daily. LOL.

[URL]https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Argument-by-Repetition[/URL]

[URL]https://www.grammarly.com/blog/logical-fallacies/[/URL]

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778797]And I'll ask again, as you typically avoided the question last time: do you think Donald Trump is richer now than he would have been if he had never entered politics in 2015 and had instead continued to focus on his TV show, his businesses, and his many positive media appearances?[/QUOTE]Really? And just pretend that you didn't say the dumbest thing I've seen on this forum in a long time -- that people who come from money don't care about money.

First, admit that it was dumb as fuck. Then we'll address your next "concern."

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778815]More turgid wordsludge from PVMonger. Some things never change.

Is the Hunter Biden laptop a "conspiracy theory"? Even worse, was the coverup of the Hunter Biden laptop, in which alphabet agencies made noises about "RUSSIA!" and we now know, thanks to Elon Musk, that Big Tech worked with govt operatives to prevent the information from being transmitted, all a "conspiracy theory"?

Nope. It was fact. All happened.

Our side actually wants to get information out for people to see it. That's why LibsofTikTok is so popular with normal people, yet so unhingedly hated by the left: all she does is repost leftists saying openly what they plan to do (usually with regard to sexualising and / or mutilating children, which is a troubling obsession of theirs).

The censorship, as we are seeing from the Twitter Files, all comes from the left. Why do you think it is that your side is the one that wants to silence people and restrict information?[/QUOTE]Some things never change.

Like your contention that Repubs want to "get information out for people to see it" but Dems / the media / the deep state / et cetera are "preventing them from getting the information out". What utter bullshit. You obviously have no idea how many thousands of people would have to be involved in such a massive coverup. People who, by your own admission, are stupid and greedy and incapable of keeping things to themselves have somehow managed to all band together to keep that information quiet. Talk about wordsludge!

What an absolutely ludicrous thought that there is a massive coverup involved. Yet you believe it. And you have the gall to call [B]me[/B] an idiot?

But we all know how this is going to end in two years. The Repubs in Congress will spend two years wasting money in endless angertainment investigations only to find nothing (or close to it). Their base will expect some results and when none are forthcoming (like the Durham report), Repubs will quietly slink away to try to come up with the next big conspiracy theory. And, of course, beg for re-election by saying "Hey, we only had two years to investigate. The Dems stymied us by responding to our subpoenas and answering our questions. Don't fault us for not governing, except for passing another massive tax cut for the rich. Remember that those riches will 'trickle down' to you this time. But re-elect us and we promise to govern this time."

[QUOTE=Paulie97;2778945]It's been that way for ages and will only get worse as our entitled younger generations can't get their noses out of their smartphones long enough to flip a burger, mow a lawn, pick fruit, or install a roof on a hot day. Yes we have long needed unskilled labor from abroad and need more. Your idea about only allowing in doctors and nurses and the like is preposterous. Get out of your computer chair and typing essays here long enough to get out and have a look around and maybe you'll begin to get it. Wink.

P.S. It's equally silly to blame Biden for multi-causal economic woes that are consistent and worldwide. That notion has already been refuted here many times, but that seldom stops one from repeating the same talking points ad nauseam. That's probably the most popular logical fallacy employed in internet debates and politics generally, though in this hooker forum the entire list is employed, and daily. LOL.

[URL]https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Argument-by-Repetition[/URL]

[URL]https://www.grammarly.com/blog/logical-fallacies/[/URL][/QUOTE]You've badly mischaracterized what I believe. In fact, you've got it completely backwards. Immigration's our hold card, in the battle to remain the preeminent world power. And we should compete for the best and the brightest, instead of telling them to take a hike. There should be more citizenship path visas for skilled people. A company trying to get an H1 B visa for an Indian engineer historically has had an uphill challenge. We also should provide a lot more visas for refugees. It's a travesty that some of the people who helped us most in Afghanistan and Syria are now persecuted. And I believe many who've suffered under totalitarian regimes like Cuba's and Venezuela's are refugees.

With regard to the unskilled and those who aren't refugees, I favor a guest worker program. Meaning you can't bring your kids, you don't get citizenship, and at some point you return to your country of origin.

The system we've got now, where you've got a lot of people entering illegally and a great burden placed on border communities, is not ideal.

As to the "Biden Recession", that was a dig at Tooms, who sounds like he believes recessions don't happen when a Democrat is president.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2774855]There's a good chance we'll go into a recession next year as a result of higher interest rates, to control inflation. Despite my beliefs about the American Rescue Plan I will not ascribe most, or even the majority of the blame for the recession to Biden.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2749483] And blaming recessions on the president is downright naive. To the extent that government has any control over the economic cycle, it's mostly in the hands of the Fed. What control does the chief executive, or the central bank (Fed) for that matter, have over whether there's a pandemic? Or whether OPEC decides to jack up oil prices? The timing of a dot com boom? Or, as an explanation of recessions in European countries, and a partial explanation of the upcoming Biden recession, a Russian invasion of Ukraine? Well, not a hell of a lot.[/QUOTE]For a more detailed explanation of why Biden shouldn't own the recession see.

[URL]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?2467-American-Politics&p=2775139&viewfull=1#post2775139[/URL].

As to the "wink" thing after the condescending comments, it doesn't really work. But I thank you for that anyway. I've been saying similar things to Tooms from time to time. And that's not befitting for the founder of the Free Markets Church of Tiny, who is trying to convert Democrats with a message of love and redemption. I resolve to post something today where I agree with Tooms.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2778889]Tiny's right. No other misplaced Repub policy is as idiotic as their crusade against immigration. To Cubans and Nicaraguans I can add Russians, Ukrainians, and pretty much all other post-Soviet ethnic groups, plus Vietnamese, Chinese, and many others who come to the States to escape from communist or leftist regimes. For better or worse (worse!) the majority of these people are predisposed to conservativism, since they are trying to move as far from the left as humanly possible.

Funnily, a lot of Mexicans and other Latin America immigrants are natural conservatives as well, but that probably has more to do with their Catholic values than politics.

This dumb belief that every immigrant must be a catch for the Democratic party (probably because they're poor when they get here, LOL) is truly remarkable.[/QUOTE]Good post, and I'm not saying that just because you said I'm right. Trump made a big mistake calling Mexican immigrants murderers and rapists. Stephen Miller, the mastermind of the Xenophobe branch of the Republican Party, always struck me as a slime ball.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778857]Well, we have his tax returns from the time he started his campaign up through his last full year in office. Here's his income or loss by year. Losses are in parentheses.

2015: (31,700,000)
2016: (32,200,000)
2017: (12,800,000)
2018: 24,400,000
2019: 4,440,000
2020: (4,690,000)

Net loss for 2015 to 2020: (52,550,000)

[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/trump-income-tax-returns-detailed-in-new-report-.html[/URL][/QUOTE]Trump made $430 m from The Apprentice over the 11 years (2004-15) he was involved with it, until he stepped away to run for president. That's $40 m a year right there.

It's so hilarious to see the dem douches claiming on the one hand that Trump only entered politics for money, and then when you show them he actually lost money as a result, they start shrieking about how he's a terrible businessman. The cognitive dissonance is as strong with them as ever.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2778859]I don't think illegal immigrants are necessarily stupid. But it seems to me that it would make a lot more sense to give priority to people with skills who will contribute the most to America, like engineers, doctors,[/QUOTE]Any illegal immigrant stopped at the border who is found to be a verifiable, qualified and experienced doctor or engineer and can speak English: sure, let them in. How many do you think that will be? Statistically zero.

Intelligent, qualified people don't need to leave their country, with the exception of Cuba which is a genuine communist tyranny. Qualified doctors and engineers are doing fine in their own countries.

The illegals pouring across Biden's open border are the low IQ dregs who can't make ends meet in their own third world shitholes which don't have a welfare state. So, they are heading north, supporting by Soros-funded NGOs, to get to a country which does have a welfare state, and where they can do menial labor off the books for ten times the rate they get back home.

I agree that there should be a points-based system of legal immigration, and the points required should be exceedingly high. Truly exceptional and / or wealthy people who will benefit America and the American people. We're talking in the thousands per year or less. And no chain migration. If you want to see your extended family, use Skype or book a plane ticket.

Also, you are right about guest worker programs rather than citizenship. One of the biggest weaknesses of the West is the ease with which we hand out passports like confetti. Try getting citizenship anywhere else in the world. The United Arab Emirates. Thailand. China. You can live and work there legally for 30 years but you ain't from there so you ain't getting a passport. Eminently sensible.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2778889]
Funnily, a lot of Mexicans and other Latin America immigrants are natural conservatives as well[/QUOTE]Then why do they all vote for leftist democrats? Or at least the large majority of them, which is all that matters.

[QUOTE=Xpartan;2778972]Really? And just pretend that you didn't say the dumbest thing I've seen on this forum in a long time -- that people who come from money don't care about money.
[/QUOTE]I didn't say that. Find the quote or shut up.

Now, for the third time, do you think Donald Trump is richer now than he would have been if he had never entered politics in 2015 and had instead continued to focus on his TV show, his businesses, and his many positive media appearances?

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2779046]your contention that Repubs want to "get information out for people to see it" but Dems / the media / the deep state / et cetera are "preventing them from getting the information out". What utter bullshit. You obviously have no idea how many thousands of people would have to be involved in such a massive coverup. [/QUOTE]Elon Musk, who bought Twitter and looked under the hood, said the other day that "every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true" [URL]https://twitter.com/drelidavid/status/1607049015199424512[/URL].

A huge team of FBI agents were working with Twitter's previous management to ban, block and shadowban people and stories that didn't fit the Washington agenda, such as the true Hunter Biden laptop story.

Why do you think the media / social media / alphabet agencies sop aggressively censored and silenced the true Hunter Biden laptop story so close to the election?

Why do you think they banned so many rightwing figures from social media, but so few leftists (including antifa / BLM accounts openly calling for violence)?

Meanwhile, Musk also uncovered a shocking large amount of ch1 ld porn on Twitter, and made it his priority to remove it (much of it has now moved with the leftists to their new social media site, Mastodon). While the alphabet agencies and Twitter bosses were working overtime to censor the right politically, they turned a blind eye to this.

Yet again we see leftists targeting children, from drag queen story touching, to attempted tranny / faggot indoctrination of elementary school kids, to this. Really makes you shudder.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2779073] we should compete for the best and the brightest, instead of telling them to take a hike. There should be more citizenship path visas for skilled people. A company trying to get an H1 B visa for an Indian engineer historically has had an uphill challenge. We also should provide a lot more visas for refugees. It's a travesty that some of the people who helped us most in Afghanistan and Syria are now persecuted. And I believe many who've suffered under totalitarian regimes like Cuba's and Venezuela's are refugees.
[/QUOTE]I broadly agree, except on the definition of "the best and brightest". H1 BS are ten a penny, and are usually used by companies to replace American engineers with some Indian who will do the job worse for half the price. There have been many cases where the American was forced to train his replacement in order to receive his severance package. Sick and totally damaging to the country.

The "best and brightest" should be the top 0. 01% of geniuses and innovators who will actually bring real and significant added value to the country. Not some pajeet who knows Linux.

I agree strongly about the guestworker program. People come to work, they don't bring their families, they don't get citizenship, and when the job is gone, so are they.

Finally, with respect, Venezuela is not a totalitarian regime. There are lots of TV channels, newspapers, political organisations and parties openly and strongly critical of Chavez / Maduro.

It is incomparable with Castro's Cuba, a genuine totalitarian communist tyranny, in which the entire media and wealth of the country was controlled by the ruling family and its apparatchiks; there was little or no opportunity for anyone outside that group; and anyone who spoke up about it was disappeared to some torture gulag.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2778870]And that one big income year of 2018 was mostly due to his sale of the last of his daddy's properties he inherited:

[B]Tax returns show Trump made millions from fathers legacy while his own properties flopped[/B]

[URL]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-returns-show-trump-made-224054562.html[/URL]

After he sold the last of his daddy's properties and some of his own failed properties, even as dumb as he is he knew the jig was up for him being tagged one of the worst businessmen of all time, should anyone take a gander at his tax returns.

That must have been around the time he decided to set the foundation for him leading an America-hating, Cop-killing Insurrection if he gets his ass kicked in 2020, which he did, and whip up his Big Lie about the election being stolen from him, a ploy he likely felt confident would easily con Repub hillbillies he had been "disgusted" by at his MAGA rallies into sending him large chunks of their entitlement checks.

The dude needed money. Badly.[/QUOTE]If you took the taxable income or loss on all of Trump's tax returns and adjusted for inflation, I bet it wouldn't total up to a lot of money, in billionaire terms. It might be a loss. He reported $916 million of net operating losses on his 1995 tax return. Adjust for inflation and that might double.

So how did he generate those losses? By borrowing tons of money, losing it in his businesses, and then not paying it back. A lot of that $916 million loss was from casinos in Atlantic City. Trump supposedly profited from Atlantic City though through management fees and the like. He came out OK. It was his banks and bondholders who got screwed. Still, through the quirks of the tax code, Trump ended up being able to use that $916 million as a tax deduction on his future years tax returns!

In 2016 Trump actually bragged about the Atlantic City bankruptcies. He said the fact that he used bankruptcy laws to his advantage showed he was smart. They were a badge of honor, a reason to vote for him, because he understood the system. I wonder how those bondholders and bankers felt about that. And the shareholders in Trump Hotels and Casinos. And all the service companies and suppliers that Trump refused to pay or underpaid.

I think you're right, a large part of the Trump's "fortune" came from Daddy. That and the Apprentice.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2778797]And I'll ask again, as you typically avoided the question last time: do you think Donald Trump is richer now than he would have been if he had never entered politics in 2015 and had instead continued to focus on his TV show, his businesses, and his many positive media appearances?[/QUOTE]You're spot on in what you're implying. This is what Tooms' link has to say about it.

"The explanation for the losses Mr Trump suffered at properties directly tied to his name could be a result of the overall effect that his presidency had on the Trump Organization; while some properties (such as, mainly, the Trump International Hotel in DC) saw a flurry of activity from people eager to meet the president or his inner circle, others suffered a financial malaise brought on by a hesitance of some to appear at Trump-branded properties out of a desire to preserve their public images.

This phenomenon was documented by NBC News in 2017, months after Mr Trump took office. At the time, the news outlet noted a surge in financial losses at a number of Trump Organization properties such as the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland amid the 2016 election.

The downward trend of interest in and acceptance of the Trump brand has followed the ex-president through his post-White House journey; NPR reported in the fall of last year that shops and other amenities at Trump's Fifth Avenue property have dried up as business has receded. ".

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2779130]Elon Musk, who bought Twitter and looked under the hood, said the other day that "every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true" [URL]https://twitter.com/drelidavid/status/1607049015199424512[/URL].

A huge team of FBI agents were working with Twitter's previous management to ban, block and shadowban people and stories that didn't fit the Washington agenda, such as the true Hunter Biden laptop story.

Why do you think the media / social media / alphabet agencies sop aggressively censored and silenced the true Hunter Biden laptop story so close to the election?

Why do you think they banned so many rightwing figures from social media, but so few leftists (including antifa / BLM accounts openly calling for violence)?

Meanwhile, Musk also uncovered a shocking large amount of ch1 ld porn on Twitter, and made it his priority to remove it (much of it has now moved with the leftists to their new social media site, Mastodon). While the alphabet agencies and Twitter bosses were working overtime to censor the right politically, they turned a blind eye to this.

Yet again we see leftists targeting children, from drag queen story touching, to attempted tranny / faggot indoctrination of elementary school kids, to this. Really makes you shudder.[/QUOTE]It's undeniable that main stream social media censored and banned the right more than the left. Now yes both sides pollute social media with bull shit. But if I worked at or owned a place like Facebook or Twitter, I wouldn't want to engage in censorship.

But do we do anything about it? I dislike government telling business owners like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk what they can and can't do, without good reason, as much or more than censorship.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2779284]It's undeniable that main stream social media censored and banned the right more than the left. Now yes both sides pollute social media with bull shit. But if I worked at or owned a place like Facebook or Twitter, I wouldn't want to engage in censorship.

But do we do anything about it? I dislike government telling business owners like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk what they can and can't do, without good reason, as much or more than censorship.[/QUOTE]Tiny,

I was talking to someone who has been following the news like never before, and this very issue was brought up. He told me that the Republicans are going to ask for documents and if they do not get them, they are going to cut off funding to the agencies that refuse them.

One of the most ridiculous aspects of this is the CIA refusing to hand over 4000 documents associated with the JFK assassination even though Congress ordered them to do so. [URL]https://www.rawstory.com/jfk-assassination-document-cia-hiding/[/URL].

This is ridiculous and the CIA should have their funding cut off for defying Congress. For all their smug self importance, I think we would all be surprised at how little we really need the CIA. Given all the shit they have pulled, we may even be better off without them.

So we saw the January 6 recommendations for Trump being prosecuted fizzle out. And Tucker Carlson was pushing that the whole of the 1-6 commission report be something that the Republican rebels push for with Kevin McCarthy. I did not understand the legal difference between riot and insurrection and it's significance until Glenn Greenwald stated that the executive branch has unlimited power to put down an insurrection, but an insurrection involves violence and death, and the only deaths were Trump supporters except for the one police officer who was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher. You remember all that? Yeah, well if you are a "never mind" Democratic douche, it sparked outrage until it was learned that officer died of a stroke and was not killed by the "rioters."

It seemed to me if Trump was charged with a crime, he would get everything in discovery including how the fire extinguisher story was originated and why. Of course, if you are a "never mind" Democrat, it was an innocent mistake but pardon the rest of us with the bad taste of Ukrainegate and Russiagate in our mouths of not being so forgiving.

And now the Biden administration has egg all over its face with the finding of classified documents in, and this is too funny, his garage next to his Corvette. And Biden said, "My Corvette's in a locked garage, okay? So it's not like they're sitting out on the street."

OMG.

Johnathan Turley is usually pro-Trump but he said this as one difference between the cases. "There is no accusation of false statements or obstruction in this instance, both of which are being investigated in Trump's Mar-a-Lago matter."

Yeah, no shit. That is because the FBI questioned people with regards to Trump and blew off speaking with people associated with Hiliary and Biden.

But the really big difference is Trump can declassify whatever he wants and Hiliary and Biden could not.

The difference between me and the Dems is that I know how stupid most classified material is. Glenn Greenwald said 90% of the USA documents that he saw classified were for political not security purposes. We just saw the World War one recipe for invisible ink, well known by all now, declassified. Among the other critical things classified was how to get a parking pass for the FBI parking lot and apply for a leave of absence. GG got all these top secret documents from Snowden and said the vast majority of them were flat out boring.

When Trump said he wanted to release all the documents, that told me the documents were the ones making the FBI look badly probably with regards to Russiagate and Ukrainegate. And if you did not know how biased the FBI was against Trump and Republicans, the Twitter files proved it beyond a doubt.

So here we go again. The FBI is sticking its fucking nose into another election. This Biden story is leaked right before the Republicans control the House. Is this the FBI and DOJ trying to pretend they are bipartisan again? OMG. Do not cut our funding Republicans please. We can fuck over Biden too, donchaknow.

The truth is that when you take on all these documents sometimes the classified and unclassified ones get intermingled. The key is to determine whether these documents really are of importance from a security perspective, if a breech of said material has gotten into enemy hands, and if the party who did not secure the documents intended for that to happen. The navy guy who took a few pics of his work station in a sub did not share them with anyone and got a year in jail which was stupid. But the real issue is that Hiliary Clinton, Trump, and Biden have more in their brains that could be damaging to USA security than any of these few documents and it is stupid to charge any of them unless they shared damaging material with our enemies with malicious intent.

What gets me about Democratic douches is how arrogant they are. They do not one law that applies to all of us. I do not want Biden, Clinton, or Trump charged with any of this petty bullshit, but they will insist that Trump gets charged while Hiliary and Biden go free. They want one law for Republicans and a different one for Democrats. They want one for bankers who support the Democratic party and broke the law and a different one for Martha Stewart.

You remember Stewart going to jail for lying to the Feds? Or how about George Papadopoulos? Yeah, I knew I slept better with those two hoodlums in jail / sarc. These people did not go to jail because they were a threat to society. They went to jail because the FBI was in essence saying how dare you lie to bad asses like us. And did that asshole FBI agent Kevin Clinesmith go to jail for lying to the FISA court? Of course not.

When it comes to federal law, I think we all are breaking it. I guess I should say this was part of a dream, but I flew a Colombian to Mexico. She loved the trip and even said it was life changing for her.

In its original form the federal Mann act made it a felony to engage in interstate or foreign commerce transport of "any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose". Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution, immorality, and human trafficking, particularly where trafficking was for the purposes of prostitution.

But as so often is the case the law was expanded by the courts. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caminetti_v._United_States[/URL].

The Court decided that the Mann Act applied not only to purposes of prostitution but also to other noncommercial consensual sexual liaisons. Thus, consensual extramarital sex falls within the definition of "immoral sex."

So you are now left with the absurd notion of when and where you fucked someone and your marital status. So if I fucked said woman when I was single and in Colombia, that was fine. But if I was married or fucked this woman when we were in Mexico, then I should be behind bars. Thank God that trip was just a dream.

It is the same kind of gotcha bullshit the Democratic douches have tried to get Trump from running for a candidate. The notion that maybe the Dems should try running a better candidate, maybe someone not as crooked as Hiliary or as demented as Biden is blasphemy to them. These want Trump in jail for anything and they do not give a fuck how or why that happens.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2779284]It's undeniable that main stream social media censored and banned the right more than the left. Now yes both sides pollute social media with bull shit. But if I worked at or owned a place like Facebook or Twitter, I wouldn't want to engage in censorship.

But do we do anything about it? I dislike government telling business owners like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk what they can and can't do, without good reason, as much or more than censorship.[/QUOTE]Government tells business owners what to do all the time when it suits the woke globohomo deep state agenda. Forcing them to bake cakes glorifying homosexual sodomy, for instance, which is compelled speech.

Nobody should be compelled to say anything. However the First Amendment gives us the right to say anything in public. Social media is the new public square in American society, so the First Amendment must be enforced in order for it to be meaningful.

Anyone who does not wish to hear any particular view is able to block the speaker or the word (s) from their personal account.

That is the situation that conservatives and right-wingers want. Leftists cannot agree to that, because their ideas are so wacky and obviously retarded and disgusting (child trannies; pe-dos; open borders; handouts for illegals; anti-white agenda; lunatic feminism; BLM and antifa riots, looting and burning; 'reparations' for slavery which white people fought to end 160 years ago, etc) that they will be rejected when put up against right wing ideals on an even footing.

Hence their need to silence, censor and lie.

This can be seen by the apoplectic leftist meltdown over the Twitter account LibsofTikTok, which simply reposts what leftists are doing for the wider world to see.

Leftists should be proud and happy for their ideas, such as indoctrinating small children into homosexuality and encouraging them to mutilate themselves, to be promoted. But they know that the vast majority rightly view them as horrific, and so they demand yet more censorship.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2779331]What gets me about Democratic douches is how arrogant they are. They do not one law that applies to all of us. I do not want Biden, Clinton, or Trump charged with any of this petty bullshit, but they will insist that Trump gets charged while Hiliary and Biden go free. They want one law for Republicans and a different one for Democrats. They want one for bankers who support the Democratic party and broke the law and a different one for Martha Stewart.

You remember Stewart going to jail for lying to the Feds? Or how about George Papadopoulos? Yeah, I knew I slept better with those two hoodlums in jail / sarc. These people did not go to jail because they were a threat to society. They went to jail because the FBI was in essence saying how dare you lie to bad asses like us. And did that asshole FBI agent Kevin Clinesmith go to jail for lying to the FISA court? Of course not.

It is the same kind of gotcha bullshit the Democratic douches have tried to get Trump from running for a candidate. The notion that maybe the Dems should try running a better candidate, maybe someone not as crooked as Hiliary or as demented as Biden is blasphemy to them. These want Trump in jail for anything and they do not give a fuck how or why that happens.[/QUOTE]Absolutely right. The overt politicization of the justice system and the alphabet agencies bodes very badly for the future of America. In conjunction with the ongoing economic decline and third worldisation, I foresee serious crises including possible war and and secession in our lifetimes.

And note that yet again it is leftists trying to censor, ban and silence their opponents. Nobody on the right has seriously attempted to disqualify Crooked Hillary Clinton or Joe "10% for the Big Guy" Biden from running for office despite their obvious crimes. We simply demand free speech and free debate on unbiased platforms. Leftists can't agree to that, for obvious reasons.

Elvis nothing has "gone down" against Trump as whataboutism is never a valid defense. Both Biden and Trump will be scrutinized. That said, given the very high bar in the US, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, convictions are often very tough to secure, and all but impossible when even the slightest plausible deniability can be forwarded. And when someone has the money to bring a team of first rate lawyers, the state is all the more hesitant to bring a case as they despise the humiliations of losing. And though the wealthy and poor guy are equally guilty, the latter is the one that is much more often charged and goes to jail. They cut a deal as they can't afford a vigorous and highly competent defense.

At the end of the day, the juries on the Trumps, Matt Gaetzes, Marjorie Taylor Greenes, Kari Lakes and the like are the voting public, and at the moment, it's not looking so hot for this phony, "America First" far right populism. Those who oppose it are entitled to a bit of celebration, though this menace is still hanging around and the fight continues.

P.S. Brevity is king, and a sign of an educated person. Most skip giant essays or just scan over them. Make it concise, to the point, and you'll increase your audience, just a recommendation, and Happy New Year.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2779284]It's undeniable that main stream social media censored and banned the right more than the left. Now yes both sides pollute social media with bull shit. But if I worked at or owned a place like Facebook or Twitter, I wouldn't want to engage in censorship.

But do we do anything about it? I dislike government telling business owners like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk what they can and can't do, without good reason, as much or more than censorship.[/QUOTE]Not into censorship but the government should have some rules such as collecting and selling personal info and browsing habits and purchases etc. Let everyone say what they want short of calling for harm to others but don't follow me around.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2779360]Government tells business owners what to do all the time when it suits the woke globohomo deep state agenda. Forcing them to bake cakes glorifying homosexual sodomy, for instance, which is compelled speech.

Nobody should be compelled to say anything. [B]However the First Amendment gives us the right to say anything in public. Social media is the new public square in American society, so the First Amendment must be enforced in order for it to be meaningful.

Anyone who does not wish to hear any particular view is able to block the speaker or the word (s) from their personal account.[/b]

That is the situation that conservatives and right-wingers want. Leftists cannot agree to that, because their ideas are so wacky and obviously retarded and disgusting (child trannies; pe-dos; open borders; handouts for illegals; anti-white agenda; lunatic feminism; BLM and antifa riots, looting and burning; 'reparations' for slavery which white people fought to end 160 years ago, etc) that they will be rejected when put up against right wing ideals on an even footing..[/QUOTE]Sure, nobody can stop you from blurting out anything you want in public.

But the First Amendment does not protect you from civil or criminal liabilities for doing so under several conditions:

[URL]https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/about/faq/which-types-of-speech-are-not-protected-by-the-first-amendment/[/URL]

[QUOTE]Although different scholars view unprotected speech in different ways, there are basically nine categories:

Obscenity
Fighting words
Defamation (including libel and slander)
Child pornography
Perjury
Blackmail
Incitement to imminent lawless action
True threats
Solicitations to commit crimes[/QUOTE][URL]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions[/URL]

And, of course, privately owned media and forums can edit or censor anything they don't want to be heard or appear on their service. So in those cases your idea of social media being the new "public square" is just made up and not true.

After allowing Trump to proudly admit personally committing a crime, stall, delay, lie and dodge repeated requests to return the documents he personally directed his staff to steal, lie some more, dodge, ignore and refuse to respond to the inevitable subpoenas, etc etc etc for months before he finally decided to assign a special council to the case, Garland has applied no such overly generous leeway to Biden, against whom none of the above crimes and obstruction of justice conditions exist.

So much for equal treatment under the law.

[B]Garland appoints special counsel to review Biden documents[/B]

[URL]https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/12/special-counsel-biden-classified-documents-00077734[/URL]

Then again, Trump had to delay, delay and delay handing over his admittedly stolen Top Secret Classified Documents until Putin, Kim and Xi returned them to him first.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2779421]Sure, nobody can stop you from blurting out anything you want in public.

But the First Amendment does not protect you from civil or criminal liabilities for doing so under several conditions:

[URL]https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/about/faq/which-types-of-speech-are-not-protected-by-the-first-amendment/[/URL]

[URL]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions[/URL]

And, of course, privately owned media and forums can edit or censor anything they don't want to be heard or appear on their service. So in those cases your idea of social media being the new "public square" is just made up and not true.[/QUOTE]What you say is very true. But Chrissie won't believe any of it because rightwingnut media tells him not to. But that's what Repubs do 'cause everything is a conspiracy.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2779611]What you say is very true. But Chrissie won't believe any of it because rightwingnut media tells him not to. But that's what Repubs do 'cause everything is a conspiracy.[/QUOTE][URL]https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/13/mccarthy-to-reporters-you-wouldnt-have-democrat-eric-swalwell-on-any-committees-if-you-received-fbi-briefing-i-did/[/URL]

[URL]https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/10/marjorie-taylor-greene-impeach-joe-biden-for-mishandling-classified-documents-vice-presidents-cannot-declassify-docs/[/URL]