American Politics

[Spidy]

Nancy Pelosi, said she wanted to punch out, Donnie "the Devil" J. Dummkopf, during the on Jan 6th, riots.

"If he comes, I'm going to punch him out...I'm going to jail and I'm going to be happy"

https://news.yahoo.com/alexandra-pel...223054031.html

Give the old gal credit, she's got moxie! My money is on Nancy!

[Xpartan]

Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million for Sandy Hook lies

https://apnews.com/article/shootings...gn=position_01

And the hits, just keep on coming for the bombastic, vile, sadistic, lying, hate spewing right-wing "shock-jock" media host Alex Jones. Proving lies have consequences, albeit right-wing media hosts, oil & gas, big pharma or big tobacco.

He's already said they won't get any money. The real battle is starting today, it seems.

[EihTooms]

Do you watch Morning Joe? I do. Your link is nit picking, misleading and inflammatory. Most people would accept a lot of what Joe, Mika and Willie said as fact.

While Scarborough occasionally says he's a conservative, he swings to the left as or more often than the right these days. He has to. He doesn't have a stable of hot, horny young vixens like you do. And his wife, a Democrat by breeding and inclination, would cut him off if he sounded too Republican. He left the Republican Party some time ago.

MSNBC's viewership is left wing. They don't want to watch shows with Republicans. MSNBC wants high ratings, to sell commercials, so it complies. Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and Joy Reid sound just as nutty from time to time as Tucker Carlson on COVID or Sean Hannity on Hunter Biden. And the daytime crew at Fox, after 9:00 AM, is definitely more "fair and balanced" then their equivalents at MSNBC.

Scarborough has taken over the job of helping Repubs win elections at crunch time that used to fall on MSNBC's Chris Matthews.

The pattern is the senior host in their programming line up, generally a trusted, seemingly non partisan or, much better, a somewhat "Dem leaning" host during non election times when it doesn't much matter, begins to spout and repeat totally unsubstantiated favorite Repub talking points and dismissing the value of voting for Dems as the election approaches:

Chris Matthews: 2005's Misinformer of the Year

https://www.mediamatters.org/chris-m...sinformer-year

I watched Matthews doing it in real time just as I watched Scarborough doing it.

Check out the many fully documented (with links) examples in that link. Matthews was busier helping GW Bush win re-election in 2004 so his Office of Thrift Supervision in his Treasury Department could work its magic of not giving a shit about doing its job of monitoring and enforcing savings bank regulations and thereby invite and facilitate that particular Great Repub Crash, Great Recession and Massive Jobs Destruction than the previous Misinformer of the Year Award winner, FUX News' Bill O'Reilly.

And more effectively than anyone on FUX News could precisely because he was supposedly a trusted "pro Dem" host campaigning for a Repub to an audience of mostly Dem voters when it mattered.

[Elvis 2008]

Something similar is happening with the red states and blue states on your list. I believe you've agreed that on average Republicans make more money and pay more taxes than Democrats. Therefore, it's almost certain Republicans get back less in monetary benefits from government. And that's what counts, right? Republicans, on average, pay more than their fair share.

Tiny, there is no point in arguing with the Dems on this point. , and I will tell you why. In 2008, I was sick of GW Bush's policies and hated McCain so I voted for Obama and was glad I did. I would vote the same way, but how do you follow my tax dollars? You cannot. So this entire red-blue issue is completely flawed. I will grant the Dems are good at using the same math as they use for climate change at justifying why they are better.

And they did the same with Covid. I do not how you get to a point that political party transcends age and individual health with a fucking virus but there was this incessant noise about how blue states were doing better with Covid than red ones. The funniest were Dems bragging about science and how smart they were with Covid while all their leaders came down with Covid including Fauci, Biden, and the CEO of Pfizer. Yeah, Trump got Covid but he was not saying Republicans were getting less Covid than Dems. And if he did, I would have thought he was an idiot for doing so.

Yeah, the market is now in bear territory and inflation is unabating and somehow it is not Biden's fault. Somehow even though he has been out of office for nearly 2 years, it is Trump's fault.

There are two ways that the Dems play the "math" game. Like I said, saying who pays more taxes, Republicans or Dems, is a completely futile exercise, but you know what they do with the climate change math? They project like ten different answers. And if you question that, then they ask, "Are you a scientist?

There was one Dem not Tooms who was long real estate using a REIT. I told him that going long real estate when the Fed was raising rates was a horrible idea, and he said I did not get his investment. I shook my head. Here we go again I thought, attack the man versus his argument. A few weeks ago the REIT index was at a 52 week low, but I think this asshole probably still thinks he was right, and I was just lucky in my projection. SMH.

You mentioned voting, and I think there is going to be a backlash in 2022 from the abortion issue but in 2024, the economy is going to be in the dumps (but unemployment will still not be that high) and we will be seeing numbers that last appeared in the Carter era. Besides abortion, what do they have? Peace? LOL. The economy? Tolerance for trans people? Republicans as racists? Censorship?

In 2022, I think Republicans will get the House but in 2024, there is going to be a Reaganesque type landslide. Because what you will see is what the Dems here try to do. Anything bad is Republican, and anything good is Democrat, and people see through that BS.

[Spidy]

The red state / blue state thing is a red herring.

According to this link from 2021, only 36% of people making over $200,000 per year supported Democrats, compared to 63% making less than $15,000 per year.

https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-...ics-democrats/

And from this link, people making over $221,572 paid 59.4% of the income tax.

https://taxfoundation.org/publicatio...come-tax-data/

Tie the two together. Republicans on average undoubtedly pay more to the federal government than they get out of it in benefits. As to Democrats, I'm not sure. But our system at the federal level is so wasteful and inefficient I suspect they get a bum deal too.

First, neither article has a direct correlation to whether Dems or Repubs incomes earners pay more taxes. Second use different numbers for their bottom earners. Third, my example below will take the same articles and make more or less the same type correlated "leap of faith" and present my results.

Article #1:

Economic Demographics of Democrats

Ultra-Wealthy

While Democrats lose support as income increases, there seems to be a tipping point where the ultra-wealthy begin leaning Democratic. The most famous example would be the entertainment industry, where star-studded events have become a significant part of Democratic culture.

But this phenomenon is not limited to Hollywood. A review of the 20 richest Americans, as listed by Forbes Magazine, found that 60 percent affiliate with the Democratic Party, including the top three individuals: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison. Among the riches families, the Democratic advantage rises even higher, to 75 percent.

https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-...ics-democrats/

So note, this article ONLY breaks down, incomes under $15 K and over $200 K breakdown. What about those income earners (the middle class) that fall in between $15 K - $200 K? (Or income bands above $200 K). But then makes the generalization, that with every additional dollar earned, the individual is less likely to be a Democrat (inlay diagram). This is just utter nonsense, IMO.

Yet in the same article (as posted in quotes above) 60% of the top income earners are Democrats. Also note, there is NO correlation to taxes paid. NONE!

Article #2:

High-Income Taxpayers Paid the Majority of Federal Income Taxes

In 2019, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers (taxpayers with AGI below $44,269) earned 11.5 percent of total AGI and paid 3.1 percent ($48.4 billion) of all federal individual income taxes.

The top 1 percent (taxpayers with AGI of $546,434 and above) earned 20.1 percent of total AGI in 2019 and paid 38.8 percent of all federal income taxes.

In 2019, the top 1 percent of taxpayers accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid $612 billion in income taxes while the bottom 90 percent paid $461 billion in income taxes.

https://taxfoundation.org/publicatio...come-tax-data/

Note, the articles use different incomes levels as top and bottom and there is NO correlation to which political denominated pays more of these taxes. NONE!

Leap of faith:

However, if I were to make that very same leap of faith and cherry pick, as to which political party pays more taxes, from these two (2) articles you've presented, it would be the Democrats, but only by about 1%.

The Math:

So for Dems, that's (top earners, at) 60% of $612 B is $367.20 B and Dems (bottom earners, at) 38% of $461 B is $175.18 B. Which equals $542.38 of the total $1073 B paid by Dems and leaves $530.62 paid by Repubs. The difference is roughly $12 B (or 1% more), that Dems are paying more than Repubs.

Perhaps a more accurate depiction (since 1% is negligible), would be to say taxes are being paid equally, from your two (2) articles.

Additional Info for Repubs:

Economic Demographics of Republicans

https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-...s-republicans/

[EihTooms]

Did you know in Scotland, England and Israel, a higher percentage of people who were vaccinated for COVID were in the hospital with COVID than the unvaccinated? The antivaxxers delighted in pointing this out. They were wrong in their conclusion, that the vaccine was worse than the disease, of course. The explanation lies with Simpson's paradox, "a phenomenon in probability and statistics in which a trend appears in several groups of data but disappears or reverses when the groups are combined. " At the time, a much higher % of the older population in the UK and Israel was vaccinated, compared to the younger population. But because the incidence of death is orders of magnitude higher in older people than young people, overall a higher percentage of the vaccinated were in the hospital. When you segmented the data by age groups, within each age group, the incidence of hospitalization was much LOWER among the VACCINATED. See..

PVMonger's list strongly supports the sad conclusion that your precious Republican tax dollars benefit more deadbeat Repubs than Dems. As do mine.

Tell your deadbeat fellow Repubs to start carrying their own weight and paying their own bills and maybe we can give you a tax cut.

Oh, while you're at it, try to convince the Repubs you vote for to stop crashing the USA economy, plunging the country into deep Recession and wiping out tens of millions of jobs whenever they get the chance as well.

[PVMonger]

Did you know in Scotland, England and Israel, a higher percentage of people who were vaccinated for COVID were in the hospital with COVID than the unvaccinated? The antivaxxers delighted in pointing this out. They were wrong in their conclusion, that the vaccine was worse than the disease, of course. The explanation lies with Simpson's paradox, "a phenomenon in probability and statistics in which a trend appears in several groups of data but disappears or reverses when the groups are combined. " At the time, a much higher % of the older population in the UK and Israel was vaccinated, compared to the younger population. But because the incidence of death is orders of magnitude higher in older people than young people, overall a higher percentage of the vaccinated were in the hospital. When you segmented the data by age groups, within each age group, the incidence of hospitalization was much LOWER among the VACCINATED. See..

For some reason, you seem to think that "it's almost certain Republicans get back less in monetary benefits from government. ".

If that were true, then states that voted for Donnie the Dumbass would not make up the bulk of the states that depend the most upon the Feds like the list shows. Let's take the #1 state on the list: West Virginia.

"There are now about 448,900 registered Republicans, or 36.8% of all registered voters in West Virginia, according to figures released by the secretary of state's office. That compares to about 444,600 registered Democrats, or 36.5%. An additional 275,000 registered voters, or 22.6%, had no party affiliation. " https://apnews.com/article/voter-reg...09222f87265b04 Yet WV voted overwhelmingly for Donnie the Dumbass in 2020 by 545,382 to 235,984. https://edition.cnn.com/election/202...inia/president And the 2016 results were similar https://www.politico.com/2016-electi...west-virginia/.

To use your logic, then, WV should not even be on the list because all of those Republicans pay lots in income tax.

As to your comment that "And they don't like their money being taken from them by the Feds and shipped off to Democrats who don't work as hard as they do. ", would they believe that their money is actually sent to states where the preponderance of voters voted for Donnie the Dumbass? See, that's the problem when ass-you-me things that aren't necessarily true.

[Tiny 12]

Then the top ten states that are the most dependent on Federal "handouts" all voted for Biden in 2020 right? Nope.

Rank State Federal Share ratio of Pct. Of.

Of state revenue Fed Fed Govt Workers.

Funding.

To Income.

Taxes paid.

1 West Virginia 45.16% 2. 36 4. 08%.

2 New Mexico 41.80% 1. 87 6. 06%.

3 Mississippi 47.31% 2. 53 3. 23%.

4 Alabama 41.20% 1. 25 3. 33%.

5 Alaska 50.83% 1. 62 6. 83%.

6 Idaho 41.08% 0. 91 2. 75%.

7 Louisiana (Tie) 52.27% 1. 60 2. 13%.

7 Maine (Tie) 43.27% 1. 19 2. 31%.

9 Wyoming 56.43% 1. 36 3. 37%.

10 Montana 46.58% 1. 04 3. 54%.

So much for the myth of the "hard working Repub tax payers". But I guarantee that you'll find some insane way to spin this.

The upshot is that the Moron Brigade has lied once again.

Did you know in Scotland, England and Israel, a higher percentage of people who were vaccinated for COVID were in the hospital with COVID than the unvaccinated? The antivaxxers delighted in pointing this out. They were wrong in their conclusion, that the vaccine was worse than the disease, of course. The explanation lies with Simpson's paradox, "a phenomenon in probability and statistics in which a trend appears in several groups of data but disappears or reverses when the groups are combined. " At the time, a much higher % of the older population in the UK and Israel was vaccinated, compared to the younger population. But because the incidence of death is orders of magnitude higher in older people than young people, overall a higher percentage of the vaccinated were in the hospital. When you segmented the data by age groups, within each age group, the incidence of hospitalization was much LOWER among the VACCINATED. See.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...psons-paradox/

Something similar is happening with the red states and blue states on your list. I believe you've agreed that on average Republicans make more money and pay more taxes than Democrats. Therefore, it's almost certain Republicans get back less in monetary benefits from government. And that's what counts, right? Republicans, on average, pay more than their fair share.

Except, of course, for the Moron Brigade. They will classify everything as "fake news" if it is further 'left' than shooting the homeless (or immigrants) for sport.

I'm a Republican, more or less, and Machete is one of my favorite movies. As I've mentioned before, the last three years running, my metropolitan area has had the highest personal income per person in the USA. We pay lots more in taxes to Washington D.C. than we get back. A plurality of the population is Hispanic, and the majority must be first, second or third generation immigrants. They don't want to ship their grannies back to Mexico. And they vote Republican. The county went for Trump by something like 55 percentage points. Why do they do this, after Trump said Mexicans are rapists and murderers? Because they vote based on their pocket books. And they don't like their money being taken from them by the Feds and shipped off to Democrats who don't work as hard as they do. And they don't like the effect that the Progressive Democrats would have on their livelihoods if they are able to implement their climate agenda.

[JustTK]

China's coal consumption was flat from around 2014 to 2020 but up to an all time high in 2021,

Why does China use so much energy / coal / fuel etc? Answer. Partly bcos it has the world's largest population, but mostly bcos it is supplying to the Western demand for its products, most notably the USA. So in reality, much of that consumption is on the hands of the West.

Someone wrote earlier that they didnt believe the USA could influence world fuel consumption - but it most certainly can - stop buying products and go green.

[EihTooms]

Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million for Sandy Hook lies

https://apnews.com/article/shootings...gn=position_01

And the hits, just keep on coming for the bombastic, vile, sadistic, lying, hate spewing right-wing "shock-jock" media host Alex Jones. Proving lies have consequences, albeit right-wing media hosts, oil & gas, big pharma or big tobacco.

Maybe to the rest of the world Alex Jones is "shocking". But he was Trump's domestic mentor and inspiration (his foreign one was Putin) and therefore the mind (haha), heart and soul of the Republican Party.

Alex Jones and Donald Trump: How the Candidate Echoed the Conspiracy Theorist on the Campaign Trail

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/a...ampaign-trail/

How Alex Jones was embraced by Trump, Rogan years after Sandy Hook lies

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...k-trump-rogan/

[PVMonger]

First, Foxy News is about as news worthy as "The Daily Show w/Trevor Noah", and at times just as funny, if not funnier.

Second, Foxy News, is money making machine for Fox Co. As if they also do not thrive on high ratings, to sell commercials and definitely are a paid branch of Repub right wing propaganda machine. And unlike REAL journalistic news programs, they use lies to garner their high ratings.

Third, MSNBC, Foxy News, aren't accredited news stations, but more news pundits. But in IMO, MSNBC is has more journalistic integrity. Just from the shear number of lawsuits against Foxy News, from the harassment suits from the women that worked there, to the $1.6bn suit over false election claims by Dominion Voting Systems, to the fraudulent on-air unfounded lies, are good indicators of said journalistic integrity.

Fourth, stop trying to equate them with actual reputable/real NEWS, where journalistic integrity is still honored and journalistic accountability is still upheld. Having said that, because cable news channels are run by private providers, the FCC has no authority to control the programming. So journalistic integrity, will always be in the "eye of the beholder".

Did Fox News Change Its Accreditation from News to Entertainment?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fo...inment-switch/

Fox News argues its hosts didn't need to fact-check election conspiracy theories from Trump's lawyers in response to Smartmatic defamation suit
https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-...ng-2021-4?op=1

Except, of course, for the Moron Brigade. They will classify everything as "fake news" if it is further 'left' than shooting the homeless (or immigrants) for sport.

[Spidy]

... MSNBC's viewership is left wing. They don't want to watch shows with Republicans. MSNBC wants high ratings, to sell commercials, so it complies. Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and Joy Reid sound just as nutty from time to time as Tucker Carlson on COVID or Sean Hannity on Hunter Biden. And the daytime crew at Fox, after 9:00 AM, is definitely more "fair and balanced" then their equivalents at MSNBC.

First, Foxy News is about as news worthy as "The Daily Show w/Trevor Noah", and at times just as funny, if not funnier.

Second, Foxy News, is money making machine for Fox Co. As if they also do not thrive on high ratings, to sell commercials and definitely are a paid branch of Repub right wing propaganda machine. And unlike REAL journalistic news programs, they use lies to garner their high ratings.

Third, MSNBC, Foxy News, aren't accredited news stations, but more news pundits. But in IMO, MSNBC is has more journalistic integrity. Just from the shear number of lawsuits against Foxy News, from the harassment suits from the women that worked there, to the $1.6bn suit over false election claims by Dominion Voting Systems, to the fraudulent on-air unfounded lies, are good indicators of said journalistic integrity.

Fourth, stop trying to equate them with actual reputable/real NEWS, where journalistic integrity is still honored and journalistic accountability is still upheld. Having said that, because cable news channels are run by private providers, the FCC has no authority to control the programming. So journalistic integrity, will always be in the "eye of the beholder".

Did Fox News Change Its Accreditation from News to Entertainment?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fo...inment-switch/

Fox News argues its hosts didn't need to fact-check election conspiracy theories from Trump's lawyers in response to Smartmatic defamation suit
https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-...ng-2021-4?op=1

[Spidy]

Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million for Sandy Hook lies

https://apnews.com/article/shootings...gn=position_01

And the hits, just keep on coming for the bombastic, vile, sadistic, lying, hate spewing right-wing "shock-jock" media host Alex Jones. Proving lies have consequences, albeit right-wing media hosts, oil & gas, big pharma or big tobacco.

[Tiny 12]

The next thing you know, typically pro Repub Mainstream Media will try to float the hogwash that crashing the economy and grounding auto travel, shutting down factories and businesses due to horrible Repub economic stewardship is a fine way to reduce green house gas emissions by almost 10%!

MSNBC's Morning Joe echoes right-wing talking points ahead of the midterms

https://www.mediamatters.org/morning...ahead-midterms

Do you watch Morning Joe? I do. Your link is nit picking, misleading and inflammatory. Most people would accept a lot of what Joe, Mika and Willie said as fact.

While Scarborough occasionally says he's a conservative, he swings to the left as or more often than the right these days. He has to. He doesn't have a stable of hot, horny young vixens like you do. And his wife, a Democrat by breeding and inclination, would cut him off if he sounded too Republican. He left the Republican Party some time ago.

MSNBC's viewership is left wing. They don't want to watch shows with Republicans. MSNBC wants high ratings, to sell commercials, so it complies. Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and Joy Reid sound just as nutty from time to time as Tucker Carlson on COVID or Sean Hannity on Hunter Biden. And the daytime crew at Fox, after 9:00 AM, is definitely more "fair and balanced" then their equivalents at MSNBC.

[Tiny 12]

Throw out all the emission red herrings and strawman arguments you want. Knock yourself out, prattling on about emissions in China. That was never my argument.

China leads the world in clean renewable energy.

Which Country Is The World Leader In Renewable Energy In 2021
https://tfetimes.com/which-country-i...nergy-in-2021/

That's a very good guess, but I think we all already know you suffer from constipation. (....kkkk!)

But seriously, it stands for Board Member(s), as in other ISGer(s), or as in another person(s) who posts here, on the forums boards. Is that English clear enough for you?

I feel foolish. I thought you were calling me and other right of center posters pieces of doo doo, when you were actually calling us Board Members! And that has a nice ring to it. Maybe "Esteemed Board Members" would be marginally better. Anyway apologies if I got a little nasty.

I really believe you have to look at the overall performance of China on greenhouse gas emissions. The bottom line is what are the green house gas emissions, and it doesn't make any difference if you get there from renewables, substituting natural gas for coal, or improving energy efficiency. If you take renewables from 5% of total power consumption to 10%, but continue to spew lots of CO2 from coal fired power plants, you haven't accomplished much.

China's coal consumption was flat from around 2014 to 2020 but up to an all time high in 2021,

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...il-equivalent/

Coal consumption in the USA has declined at a rate of 7.3% per year since 2014, from 852 million tons per annum to 501 million tons per annum,

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ion-in-the-us/

I don't believe the statement in your link that "China is the country that has been the fastest at trying to go green completely. " According to the link below, China generates 28.8% of its electricity from renewables," compared to 20.5% from the USA. Undoubtedly, if you included cement and steel (which require lots of coal to manufacture) in the mix along with electricity, China wouldn't look as good. Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy clock in from 40% to 65%, and other countries, mostly with abundant hydroelectric power, are higher.

https://yearbook.enerdata.net/renewa...ion-share.html

If China is going to spend more than the USA on renewables that's probably mostly because China generates so much more power than the USA. And it's adding a lot more capacity than the USA.

China can supply most or all of its coal needs internally. So from a national security perspective, they'll prefer coal over natural gas, even though generating electricity from natural gas emits considerably less CO2 per gigawatt hour than coal. The domestically produced coal in China BTW on average is dirtier and produces more CO2 per gigawatt hour than the higher BTU coal burned by European and Japanese power plants.