American Politics

2-3 years ago somebody at America's largest business organization finally got around to looking at the past century pattern of results and came to the inescapable conclusion that the Repub Party's supposed expertise in accomplishing what only on the surface sounds like it ought to be great for business, see quote below, in the hands of Real Repubs in the Real World turns out to produce pro-business results notably inferior to that of the Dem Party, at best, and more often than not produces demonstrably horrific results of the worst economic downturns, massive jobs and business destruction in history:

[B]McCarthy, Scalise go to war with U.S. Chamber after group backed some Democrats[/B]

[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/06/kevin-mccarthy-steve-scalise-no-plans-to-meet-chamber-of-commerce.html?__source=androidappshare[/URL]

[QUOTE]"The Chambers priorities include lower taxes, reduced spending, fighting overregulation and numerous other issues..[/QUOTE]Yep, dangling some piddling, utterly useless to the point of being counterproductive marginal tax cut for the wealthy before the eyes of the electorate while, for example, making it easier for industries to pollute the air and water or disregarding critical bank and financial regulations, which has to be cleaned up eventually at considerable cost, does fuck all for business if Real Repubs in the Real World are also going to be criminally negligent on National Security, border control and immigration, ignore warnings about potential foreign and domestic terrorist attacks, Pandemics, economic downturns that could be lessened or averted with the proper timely tweaks, not threatening to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States of America by refusing to pay the bills jacked up disproportionately by Repubs due to their typically horrific stewardship, etc, etc, etc.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2786936]Lolol. Now THAT'S funny!
[/QUOTE]No, what's funny is that you believe Biden is "qualified.” He’s 80 years old and showing signs of dementia. He's also apparently simple minded, or he wouldn't have plagiarized British politicians throughout his political career. Even after everyone knew he was plagiarizing British politicians.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787175]No, what's funny is that you believe Biden is "qualified. Hes 80 years old and showing signs of dementia. He's also apparently simple minded, or he wouldn't have plagiarized British politicians throughout his political career. Even after everyone knew he was plagiarizing British politicians.[/QUOTE]Biden has already produced better economic and jobs creating results in two years than any Repub president has in any full term, gotten more positive legislation passed in that time than any president since FDR, much of it bipartisan despite having as narrow of a majority as any POTUS has had.

Yeah, he was and still is more qualified for the job and doing a better job than any Repub ever, which admittedly ain't saying much, and most Dems, which is saying very, very much indeed.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787116]Something similar happened in the 2016 primaries. The powers that be decided Hillary would be a better general election candidate than Bernie so they made that happen. I seem to recall the Democratic Party had a large number of super delegates who were selected by the party bosses? I'm not sure if they fixed that?

They are there. If you define "qualified" as Tooms does, more than in the Democratic Party. I'm partial to blue state Republican governors, like Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, and Chris Sununu. They're all popular, they're not divisive, and they've all done a good job. John Kasich and Nikki Haley too, although they hail from red states.[/QUOTE]Wrote a more detailed reply but I keep losing my sign-in and lose the reply so I'll keep this short. Like Ed Macman (spelling) used to tell Johnny Carson doing the Carsony skit, "You are correct sir".

Maybe Trump pulled those critical Pandemic Prevention and Response monitors and agents out of China 5 months before the first Covid cases emerged there despite all expert warnings for him not to do something so dangerous and stupid for the same reason he did these things on China's behalf and to the detriment of America; so as not to make his Master Xi feel uncomfortable, what with our people monitoring and reporting on any major lab fuck ups, intentional or accidental, along with the inevitable lies that could and would most certainly crash worldwide economies re a virulent Pandemic.

And along the way fluff up his Master Xi's dick so that he might help him "find" however many votes he needed in 2-3 battleground states to "Make sure I win. ".

[URL]https://crooksandliars.com/2023/02/kinzinger-confirms-report-trump-begged-xi[/URL]

[QUOTE]Kinzinger, who was in the room with Trump and Bolton to witness Trump doing this:

"I was in a meeting where Donald Trump asked a group of us to lay off XI and China telecom ZTE because he promised XI, and he doesnt want to disappoint him. Bolton wrote about this, I can confirm. I was shocked."
....
(And this)
However, former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger confirmed former national security adviser John Bolton's claim that Trump begged President Xi Jinping for help in 2020 to help him win reelection. [/QUOTE]And, who knows, it is also very likely that commander-in-thief Trump also looked the other way as at least 3 Chinese spy balloons flew across USA without so much as a peep from him. Again, so as not to embarrass his Master Xi and to lather him up for any "technical" help he could offer on that win he desperately needed in 2020:

[B]Chinese balloons flew over US three times during Trump administration: officials[/B]

[URL]https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3844511-chinese-balloons-flew-over-us-three-times-during-trump-administration-officials/[/URL]

Some of you here should enjoy this debate:

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClB2Ndp2Zug[/URL]

BUt I wants MDS to explain why he thinks Samuel Moyn is Anti-American.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787120]Good post PVMonger. Now I don't agree with all of it, but it's well thought out.

Given that the main reason people purchase handguns is to be able to kill people, admittedly for self defense in most instances, I don't have a problem with that. Perhaps it makes sense to at least regulate handguns as strictly as cars. They are deadly weapons, and you do have a lot of yahoos out there who are emotional nut cases and don't know the first thing about gun safety. But I don't have a dog in this hunt as I don't own a handgun. You should take this up with Chris, Elvis or the Marquis. Ask them nicely and they most likely will respond in kind.[/QUOTE]The people you mentioned will mouth platitudes like "2nd Amendment" and shut down. The simple facts are that all of what I said in my original post are true. Unfortunately.

[QUOTE=ChrisP;2786895]So you can't define men and women. Noted.[/QUOTE]As anyone can see, I said [B]don't[/B] and you said [B]can't[/B].

Those are two different words with two different meanings. Please learn the difference.

Dems [B]do not[/B] "define" men and women because when we do, we get douches asking questions like "Then why can't you define them?

Or douches making transphobic statements like "Trannies are mentally ill".

Or douches who think that using the term "globohomo" is, somehow, funny when in reality it is simply homophobic.

Or douches who continually post "opinions" and believe that they are facts.

Or douches who believe that because Tucker Carlson is watched a lot it means that he is correct in his opinions. Dogs get more information from sniffing another dog's butt than anybody gets from watching Carlson. Those same people seem to ignore the fact that Carlson's own lawyers argued in a courtroom that nobody with an ounce of common sense would believe a word that Carlson says. But since there are a lot of people who believe every word that Carlson says I guess that means that there are a lot of people without an ounce of common sense.

Or douches who don't understand that "heritage American" is a code-word for "white people". The only "heritage Americans" living in the USA are those who pre-dated the white man by 10,000+ years. I might even accept the term "heritage American" if someone can prove their lineage back to the original Pilgrims. But, in general, unless you are a "Native American", you aren't a "heritage American".

Or douches who are afraid that an immigrant with a 6th grade education will somehow "steal" your job that requires a Master's degree". This is xenophobia.

Or douches who believe that the 2020 election was stolen, even though there is absolutely no proof of that plus the statement of the then-Attorney-General who said that talk of a stolen election was "bullshit".

Or douches who believe that Jews will replace them.

I could go an and on but every Dem already knows. And every Dem also understands who [B]does not[/B] understand what I just posted. And they also know who [B]can not[/B] understand what I just posted.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787116]Something similar happened in the 2016 primaries. The powers that be decided Hillary would be a better general election candidate than Bernie so they made that happen. I seem to recall the Democratic Party had a large number of super delegates who were selected by the party bosses? I'm not sure if they fixed that?

They are there. If you define "qualified" as Tooms does, more than in the Democratic Party. I'm partial to blue state Republican governors, like Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, and Chris Sununu. They're all popular, they're not divisive, and they've all done a good job. John Kasich and Nikki Haley too, although they hail from red states.[/QUOTE]Nothing was "fixed. " Hillary Clinton got at least 2. 5 million more votes than Bernie Sanders did in the primaries, fair and square, nothing to do with the Super Delegates.

[B]Does Clinton really have 2.5 million more votes than Sanders?[/B]

[URL]https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/05/hillary-clinton/does-clinton-really-have-25-million-more-votes-san/[/URL]

[QUOTE]Well, with the Wisconsin vote not yet in, based on the Fair Vote totals, the primary tallies stand at 8,746,692 for Clinton compared to 6,049,960 for Sanders. This gives Clinton nearly 2.7 million votes more than her rival.[/QUOTE]Besides which, did you know that Bernie Sanders isn't even a a member of the Democratic Party? Nope, he isn't. Are you shocked? Maybe you just discovered this.

Bernie switched from being an Independent, what he might characterize as being a member of the Democratic Socialists of America Party to the Democratic Party just long enough to run as a Dem in the primaries, enjoy the DNC's debate schedule and media attention and then, sure enough, switched right out and back to his supposed Democratic Socialists of America Party as soon as the primaries were over.

Is there really any wonder why The Democratic Party, not talking about the DNC here that demonstrated no pro-Hillary Clinton, anti-Sanders bias, wasn"t falling all over itself to praise and tout someone who hadn't even been a member of the Democratic Party and everyone had every reason to suspect would dump the Party as soon as he got his nomination or not, which he did, but instead chose to side with a longtime, genuine Democrat?

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787006]There are no data (at least that I could find) that broke out the number of handguns from the number of "firearms" per capita in the US. Only some vague assertions that there were more handguns than long guns. One source says that 60% of murders were by handgun, 3% by rifle and 1% by shotgun. But then there's the pesky "remainder" of 36%. Is it the same percentage? Larger? Smaller? But if the percentage is 51%-49% or 80%-20% is unknown and probably unknowable. We already know that there are 120+ firearms per 100 people in the US. [URL]https://pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/[/URL].

But the problem with firearms in general is their availability and their ease of acquisition. Firearms are obtained through legal gun dealers, through gun shows, from private sellers, from out-of-state and from theft. The simple problem is that other than obtaining a firearm through a legal dealer (which sometimes requires a background check and sometimes requires a license), none of the other means of acquisition require diddly-squat.

But let's say that the US decided that they'd had enough of the violence and that they were going to "crack down". If we ignore the handwringing from the right about how the US was going to confiscate every firearm in America, what can be done?

How about requiring a background check and a 30-day waiting period for every handgun sold by every dealer, private individual or gun show seller? How about registering every handgun / buyer combination so that it becomes a matter of record if someone from Illinois goes to Indiana to buy a handgun today and goes to Wisconsin to buy a handgun next week. Since people have only two hands, nobody needs more than two handguns. And you'd better damn well have both if you've bought both because you'd need the paperwork.

How about firearm laws that are tough and equal from state to state? The largest problem now is that many states have very lax firearm laws. That means that a handgun that is easy to obtain in one state may be difficult to obtain in another state so it make absolute sense for somebody to obtain it where it is easy to do so and resell it where it is difficult to obtain. I cannot find the article that referenced how tough gun laws in every state would have an effect on lowering crime because of the price of a handgun. The basic premise was that if handguns were extremely difficult to obtain, the supply would go down and the price would go up. That's, you know, ECON 101. Would the price go to $1000? Who knows. But common sense says that the price would go up dramatically.

Now, to theft. I read one article that said that 300,000 firearms were stolen each year from retail establishments. Really? What do these morons do? Do have a neon sign that says "Premises unlocked so come and take what you want"? And stolen from homeowners? Any homeowner who doesn't have a hand gun in a locked safe ought to be shot on sight.

I have seen nothing, from either side of the aisle, about tackling the problem. Dems won't do it because they know that handgun legislation simply can not get passed. Repubs won't do it because handgun legislation will infuriate their base.[/QUOTE]Excellent post! Excellent questions and spot on summation.

Yep, it's not like the Dems haven't done anything to fend off the proliferation of handguns. But why beat your head against the wall, only to yield the same results.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2787148]2-3 years ago somebody at America's largest business organization finally got around to looking at the past century pattern of results and came to the inescapable conclusion that the Repub Party's supposed expertise in accomplishing what only on the surface sounds like it ought to be great for business, see quote below, in the hands of Real Repubs in the Real World turns out to produce pro-business results notably inferior to that of the Dem Party, at best, and more often than not produces demonstrably horrific results of the worst economic downturns, massive jobs and business destruction in history:

[B]McCarthy, Scalise go to war with U.S. Chamber after group backed some Democrats[/B]

[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/06/kevin-mccarthy-steve-scalise-no-plans-to-meet-chamber-of-commerce.html?__source=androidappshare[/URL][/QUOTE]Yes, you have to buy Democratic Politicians off to get them to treat American businesses fairly.

The Chamber of Commerce, wisely realizing that Democrats would retain control of the House in 2020, endorsed 23 House Democrats along with 29 House Republicans. All of the Chamber's $2 million in outside spending up to 9/1/20 however went to Republicans, along with $40 million in 2018 and 2016. The Chamber contributed $168,000 to Republican Senatorial candidates in 2020, compared to "0" to Democrats. (They probably thought the Republicans were going to win the Senate. And if Trump hadn't fucked up the Georgia Senate races they would have.).

[URL]https://ktla.com/news/politics/marking-a-shift-chamber-of-commerce-endorses-23-freshmen-house-democrats/[/URL]

Fast forward to 2022. The Chamber endorsed 23 Republicans and 4 Democrats and donated $3 million to Mitch McConnell's PAC.

[URL]https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-lobbying/3717778-us-chamber-rejects-mccarthys-call-for-new-leadership/[/URL]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2787148]Yep, dangling some piddling, utterly useless to the point of being counterproductive marginal tax cut for the wealthy before the eyes of the electorate while, for example, making it easier for industries to pollute the air and water.... [/QUOTE]Why are you criticizing a marginal tax cut for the wealthy if it was piddly? The decrease in marginal rates in percentage terms for the middle class was greater than for the wealthy BTW.

Believe it or not, Republicans favor reasonable regulation of pollution. Since you kind of brought it up, please note that Democrats have given the EPA $102 billion to spend on climate-related projects over the next 18 months. What's wrong with that? Well, the usual annual budget of the EPA is about $9 billion per year. How efficiently do you think that money is going to be spent. As one community organizer put it, "They passed all this stuff, and they committed funding for all this stuff, but then they didn't actually write out how it's going to work. Everybody's just kind of waiting for that to come out."

Wasteful Democrats. They think money grows on trees.

[url]https://www.wsj.com/articles/epas-100-billion-climate-aid-windfall-spurs-turmoil-11675082292?mod=article_inline[/url]

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2787272]The people you mentioned will mouth platitudes like "2nd Amendment" and shut down. The simple facts are that all of what I said in my original post are true. Unfortunately.[/QUOTE]Well, OK, I'll weigh in again then. For some reason, you and Spidy refuse to accept that Chris' estimate of 10 deaths by handgun per death by long run is reasonable. And you apparently want to impose the same laws on Wyoming that you do on Washington D.C. I suspect many Democrats think similarly. Until they change their views, there will be no progress.

You overstate the threat of right wing terrorism greatly. However, if you start taking away peoples' shotguns and rifles in places like Texas and Wyoming, your worst fears may be realize. The only truly horrendous right wing terrorist incident in the USA was related to this issue. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms decided it was going to take the guns away from the Branch Davidians. People died in Waco as a result. And that was the impetus for Timothy McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City. That's a precursor of what we'll be looking at if the Feds get overzealous about taking guns.

Going back to the UNODC data, for homicide rates by country, look at the top 30 countries. Of these, 15 are islands with restrictive gun laws. The USA Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Anguilla, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Dominica, Montserrat, Duracao, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Barbados. If gun laws aren't doing a good job of reducing homicides on islands, why would enforcing restrictive gun laws in places like Wyoming (homicide rate 2. 2 per 100,000) reduce homicides in a places like Washington D.C. (homicide rate 23.4)? In passing, please note gun laws are more restrictive in Washington D.C. than Wyoming.

Anyway, I do agree with you, that restrictions on hand guns would likely reduce the homicide rate in places where that's a problem. I think it makes sense to restrict handgun ownership in Washington D.C. , but not necessarily Wyoming. Or rather, let the people of Washington D.C. and Wyoming decide for themselves. Don't impose a federal mandate.

I believe we could get some agreement here, if you and Spidy were on board with my initial two points. Chris, Elvis and the Marquis would probably be onboard with taking handguns away from Democrats in places like Washington D.C.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787452]

Wasteful Democrats. They think money grows on trees.
[/QUOTE]Sorry gentlemen of the left, I meant to write wasteful Democratic [B]politicians[/B].

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2787452]Yes, you have to buy Democratic Politicians off to get them to treat American businesses fairly.

The Chamber of Commerce, wisely realizing that Democrats would retain control of the House in 2020, endorsed 23 House Democrats along with 29 House Republicans. All of the Chamber's $2 million in outside spending up to 9/1/20 however went to Republicans, along with $40 million in 2018 and 2016. The Chamber contributed $168,000 to Republican Senatorial candidates in 2020, compared to "0" to Democrats. (They probably thought the Republicans were going to win the Senate. And if Trump hadn't fucked up the Georgia Senate races they would have.).

[URL]https://ktla.com/news/politics/marking-a-shift-chamber-of-commerce-endorses-23-freshmen-house-democrats/[/URL]

Fast forward to 2022. The Chamber endorsed 23 Republicans and 4 Democrats and donated $3 million to Mitch McConnell's PAC.

[URL]https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-lobbying/3717778-us-chamber-rejects-mccarthys-call-for-new-leadership/[/URL]

Why are you criticizing a marginal tax cut for the wealthy if it was piddly? The decrease in marginal rates in percentage terms for the middle class was greater than for the wealthy BTW.

Believe it or not, Republicans favor reasonable regulation of pollution. Since you kind of brought it up, please note that Democrats have given the EPA $102 billion to spend on climate-related projects over the next 18 months. What's wrong with that? Well, the usual annual budget of the EPA is about $9 billion per year. How efficiently do you think that money is going to be spent. As one community organizer put it, "They passed all this stuff, and they committed funding for all this stuff, but then they didn't actually write out how it's going to work. Everybody's just kind of waiting for that to come out."

Wasteful Democrats. They think money grows on trees.

[url]https://www.wsj.com/articles/epas-100-billion-climate-aid-windfall-spurs-turmoil-11675082292?mod=article_inline[/url][/QUOTE]Fast forward to 2022 and the Chamber of Commerce likely expected the same Red Tsunami many expected but never happened. However, the Redrawn Districts Pink Tinkle still tinkled out a 5 vote advantage in the House. To be sure, that is a historic embarrassment for the "out" party at such a midterm, but they did redraw enough districts to produce a tinkle.

So now the Chamber of Commerce's more favorable Repub donations bought them bragging rights to siding with the Repub "winners" who will again threaten to and this time around might actually succeed in defaulting on the debt they racked up, shit on the full faith and credit of the USA, crash worldwide economies, few more so than the USA, and ultimately make China richer.

They must be very proud to have placed the easy bet on the "favorite" in 2022 and, having done so, might very well have squeezed that little pink weenie just right and just long enough to produce its pink tinkle.

Repubs' classic tax cuts for the wealthy are "piddly" because they have yet to produce an economic boom, more often than not precipitate another Great Repub Recession and Massive Job Destruction and are often not even demanded by the wealthy because they barely notice a difference. Trump's latest utterly useless ones were permanent for corporations and the very wealthy and were set to sunset within a few years for everyone else. So it was a clever ruse for them to make those temporary ones look ok this time around. Just enough to get them past a couple of election cycles:

[B]Trump Tax Cuts Helped Billionaires Pay Less Taxes Than The Working Class In 2018[/B]

[URL]https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilomaldonado/2019/10/10/trump-tax-cuts-helped-billionaires-pay-less-taxes-than-the-working-class-in-2018/[/URL]

[B]Republicans Now Plan to Pass Permanent Tax Cuts for Corporations and Temporary Tax Cuts for Everybody Else[/B]

[URL]https://slate.com/business/2017/11/gop-tax-plan-permanent-cuts-for-corporations-temporary-for-everyone-else.html[/URL]

The extensions during Trump's Pandemic's worldwide economic disaster? Those were Democrat tax cuts that Repubs never intended to be given.

[QUOTE=Chris P;2786438] {...same drivel, drivel, drivel...} [/QUOTE]

Repeating yourself with the same pathetic drivel, expecting a different result, is indeed madness. Definitely a clear sign of senility or is it just "low-IQ"?

But since you supposedly don't have a "low-IQ", I'm sure you're "smart enough", to find the answers to your question else where. So go google to your hearts content.

Attaboy and Good Luck!