Random Politics

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Re: Random Politics

Post by A_B »

DaveInSeattle wrote:
degenerasian wrote:Why doesn't Marco Rubio just tell McConnell he won't vote yes unless the Child Tax Credit is added.


Because Marco Rubio has the political spine of a damp washcloth.


Except that he did exactly what Degen suggested.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Avram »

And they bought Corker off with a break for his real estate company. When the Dems passed ACA they secured votes by getting concessions that specifically benefitted the Constituents of representative. The Rs are bribing the senators with personal gifts. What utter bullshit.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Mulligan »

So now the Trump administration has informed the CDC that there is 7 words they can't use. Evidence based, scientifically based, fetus, transgender and 3 more. Let's just completely do away with all science..if money doesn't win out then we won't let anything else rule our decision making.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cdc-barred-u ... 00387.html
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Re: Random Politics

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Mulligan wrote:So now the Trump administration has informed the CDC that there is 7 words they can't use. Evidence based, scientifically based, fetus, transgender and 3 more. Let's just completely do away with all science..if money doesn't win out then we won't let anything else rule our decision making.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cdc-barred-u ... 00387.html


The rate things are going, they will end compulsory education in grade 5.
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Re: Random Politics

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This bitch is fucking wildin'.

https://twitter.com/JudgeJeanine/status ... 2524621825

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Re: Random Politics

Post by Johnnie »

Look! Everyone's favorite white trash family is back in the news!

This thread has fun comments:

http://reddit.com/r/news/comments/7kiap ... rested_on/
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Re: Random Politics

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Re: Random Politics

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Re: Random Politics

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Its so lame that I see that and would totally support it but wouldn't actively participate to avoid putting myself/family at risk.



(I assume that's a built-in part of the calculus and hardly uncommon, but still lame.)
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Re: Random Politics

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mister d wrote:Its so lame that I see that and would totally support it but wouldn't actively participate to avoid putting myself/family at risk.



(I assume that's a built-in part of the calculus and hardly uncommon, but still lame.)


I think there's things we can do and should do frankly that go beyond anything that might put you at risk of being arrested. We should mobilize everyone in the country to make it uncomfortable for these people to even go out in public to get a meal. If you see a billionaire at Momofuku you should be tell him/her to fuck off, even if gets you kicked out of the restaurant, etc.

I'm not really comfortable myself with any physical violence to property but I have no problem telling Sheldon Adelson to go fuck himself if I were ever to see him in public (which has never happened because he rarely leaves his gilded towers, but still...)
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Re: Random Politics

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mister d wrote:Its so lame that I see that and would totally support it but wouldn't actively participate to avoid putting myself/family at risk.



(I assume that's a built-in part of the calculus and hardly uncommon, but still lame.)


Yeah, by most objective standards, I'm pretty rich. So fuck that.
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Re: Random Politics

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A big part of the myth of America is that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps (whatever they may actually be?) and become just as rich or powerful as anyone else in the country. it's why every politician starts their speeches with tales of how poor their parents or grandparents were.

And like all bits of dogma it is intended to keep people from questioning what is going on in their society.

While it isn't specifically American, the worship of money and those who make a lot of it is perhaps at its highest level in the USA. The rich are placed on a pedestal merely because they are rich. What the fuck has Warren Buffet ever achieved other than making a lot of money? Good for him that he lives modestly and is going to give his money away, but why is he so beloved? Because he bought Dairy Queen stock when it was undervalued? Good for him. That makes him almost as valuable to a society as a good 3rd grade teacher.

Years ago I pitched ideas for a series called "The Secret Millionaires Club." Central premise was that kindly ole' Warren Buffet was advising a group of kids about entrepreneurship and business. Not a bad idea, but part of the mythologizing of money.

And obviously, whatever I say about Buffett applies a thousand times more for all the shysters in finance who create nothing and who are now running the country.
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Re: Random Politics

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Buffet isn't really the best example of what's wrong with what you've correctly pointed out as a deeply flawed myth-based cult of money in America. He's what you'd hope most rich people would become, which is a humble guy that is thoughtful about how wealth affects everyone and has given away something close $30B to charities over the last 10 years.
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Re: Random Politics

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Nonlinear FC wrote:Buffet isn't really the best example of what's wrong with what you've correctly pointed out as a deeply flawed myth-based cult of money in America. He's what you'd hope most rich people would become, which is a humble guy that is thoughtful about how wealth affects everyone and has given away something close $30B to charities over the last 10 years.


Was going to post this almost exactly.
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Re: Random Politics

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I chose Buffett because he is like the Mother Theresa or Gandhi of billionaires in terms of how he is exalted. On sober second thought, the fact that the money he is giving away was pretty much created by him means that I should go easy on the old timer.

I would think that the man in the oval office is a much better example of the cult of money.
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Re: Random Politics

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Pruitt wrote:I chose Buffett because he is like the Mother Theresa or Gandhi of billionaires in terms of how he is exalted. On sober second thought, the fact that the money he is giving away was pretty much created by him means that I should go easy on the old timer.


He's a good guy. Hell of a good guy. A great guy.
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Re: Random Politics

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How the Baby Boomers ruined America.

I think this guy is right on. Trump and this tax bill are just the final fuck you from the Baby Boomers (who comprise most of Congress as well).

I tend to have a more optimistic view of things at times lately and I think fairly soon things in this country are going to start getting better and it's going to coincide with the first set of Baby Boomers to start dying off in significant numbers -- those in their mid-to-late 70s.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Square Rob »

This is the oldest congress and senate in history. That ain't right.
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Re: Random Politics

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Square Rob wrote:This is the oldest congress and senate in history. That ain't right.


I think both can be true. I gotta imagine Baby Boomers (those between 72 and roughly 53 or so) make up the majority of any generation in Congress.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Square Rob »

Oh, sorry. I was saying the fact that this is the oldest in history sucks. Not that your post was incorrect. I am entirely ready for the baby boomers to GTFO.
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Re: Random Politics

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Gotcha. I was legit curious so I looked and it was 23 senators pre-Baby Boom and about 55 or so Baby Boomers, but your point about it being the oldest Congress is understood (and still very much relevant to my point). Would be nice if voters would finally start electing someone else for a change (on both sides).

I really kind of think there's something secretly dark and monstrous about the Baby Boom generation. And something self-hating in me that I still think someone like Joe Biden might be the answer in 2020.
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Re: Random Politics

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The United States, challenged all over the world, is receding and turning inward. The economy still hasn’t recovered fully from the financial collapse of 2008, the worst since the Great Depression. The federal debt is out of control, and inequality is worse. Boomers expanded entitlement programs that are wrecking the nation’s finances; they failed to act on global warming; they presided over declining faith in virtually all institutions, from religion to the Supreme Court; and their children may be the first generation with dim prospects of doing better than their parents did.

Gonna be awesome when rhetoric like what I bolded above, from that anti-Boomers article, is used to justify the coming GOP attempt to gut America's already insufficient social safety net. But sure, providing poor and elderly people with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security* is just like Wall Street greed and environmental destruction.

*By the way, the use of the term "entitlements" to refer to these programs is utter propagandistic bullshit. Most recipients spend decades paying into these programs, but assholes like the author of that piece use the negative framing of "entitlement" to make the poor and elderly seem like freeloaders.
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Re: Random Politics

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brian wrote:...I still think someone like Joe Biden might be the answer in 2020.


While personally, I'd prefer someone like a lefty black Muslim woman to really piss off the haters, I think a center-left white guy like Biden would be a wise choice. He's got the political connections to hopefully reach across the aisle (if the Tea party loses some it's clout) and has checks on both sides of hot topic issues that he could siphon off some GOP votes if they throw up Trump or another like-minded candidate. They may need to have a more progressive VP to gather in the Bernie caucus though.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by P.D.X. »

tennbengal wrote:


He’s not wrong.


Wouldn't the "easier" way just to boycott their sports leagues, television networks, restaurants, stores, financial institutions, etc. etc.? Sure getting an entire culture to shift away from the NFL, Amazon, Walmart, etc would be hard but it seems more practical than getting people to start committing felonies en masse.
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Re: Random Politics

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But you're hurting thousands from the bottom up, potentially to no intended gain, if you do that. Direct method would effect far more change.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by degenerasian »

This one is for Pruitt!

Image
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Re: Random Politics

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Where's PEI?!
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Re: Random Politics

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brian wrote:Where's PEI?!


Off the coast of New Brunswick.

As for the Ontario Premier - she is hated by everyone from libertarians to socialists. Our first openly gay Premier, and I can almost guarantee that she won't carry the gay vote.

Her 20% approval rating is actually up 2% from last year at this time.
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Re: Random Politics

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brian wrote:Gotcha. I was legit curious so I looked and it was 23 senators pre-Baby Boom and about 55 or so Baby Boomers, but your point about it being the oldest Congress is understood (and still very much relevant to my point). Would be nice if voters would finally start electing someone else for a change (on both sides).

I really kind of think there's something secretly dark and monstrous about the Baby Boom generation. And something self-hating in me that I still think someone like Joe Biden might be the answer in 2020.



Ok, you gotta hang in there with me for a minute, because this is going to go around a couple of bends here...

Baby Boomer births start around 1946, the end of WW2 and go up through the mid-60s (Korean War vets.) I've heard/read that one of the things that was massively under-reported or even understood was how many soldiers came back from those wars with PTSD. Hell, it wasn't even a thing back then. You were supposed to just grit your teeth, suck it up, go to work and deal with it.

I fully buy into the notion that those guys were VERY fucked up and they transferred a lot of that to their kids. And unlike in the 70s onward, where fucked up dads would pretty much just split, back in the 50s and 60s, the culture was to just stick together as a family, even if dad was a blackout drunk, abusing everyone in the house with impunity. Or not even to that extreme, if he was just walking around with a 1000 yard stare and found it impossible to love anything or connect in any meaningful way... Lot's of ways to fuck up your kids.
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Re: Random Politics

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Oh, that's a fun game! I think I named them all using those abbreviations.
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Re: Random Politics

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degenerasian wrote:This one is for Pruitt!

Image


Also works as a graphic representation of the diversity of our people!
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Re: Random Politics

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So it appears the VA House of Delegates ended in a 50/50 split (meaning effectively it is in Democratic control) by ONE VOTE.

https://twitter.com/AnthonyMKreis/statu ... 7676038146
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Re: Random Politics

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https://nyti.ms/2kdaxZG

This is what I've been talking about. Suburban Republican white women are fired up.
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Re: Random Politics

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Nonlinear FC wrote:https://nyti.ms/2kdaxZG

This is what I've been talking about. Suburban Republican white women are fired up.


We can only hope that people are still fired up next November. Maybe the idiocy settles down and the economy keeps the Obama bounce and the uproar dies down a bit.

Sadly mid-terms are generally low turnout and as we know, Democrats rely on high turnout to win. Additionally, who knows what additional roadblocks to voting will be put up in the next 10-11 months. People like to complain and then when push comes to shove they'd rather keep complaining than head to the polls.

I'm hoping that a lot of purple turns blue, but it's harder to turn an R into a D then shifting a couple lines in the letter.
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Re: Random Politics

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brian wrote:So it appears the VA House of Delegates ended in a 50/50 split (meaning effectively it is in Democratic control) by ONE VOTE.

https://twitter.com/AnthonyMKreis/statu ... 7676038146


Unbelievable. This is one for the text books.
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Re: Random Politics

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Rush2112 wrote:
Nonlinear FC wrote:https://nyti.ms/2kdaxZG

This is what I've been talking about. Suburban Republican white women are fired up.


We can only hope that people are still fired up next November. Maybe the idiocy settles down and the economy keeps the Obama bounce and the uproar dies down a bit.

Sadly mid-terms are generally low turnout and as we know, Democrats rely on high turnout to win. Additionally, who knows what additional roadblocks to voting will be put up in the next 10-11 months. People like to complain and then when push comes to shove they'd rather keep complaining than head to the polls.

I'm hoping that a lot of purple turns blue, but it's harder to turn an R into a D then shifting a couple lines in the letter.



There is a ton of history that says that where things stand at this point (a year in) is very predictive of what will happen in the midterms.

No chance things die down. People have been pissed for a year and as that article points out, it's only getting worse for Trump.
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Re: Random Politics

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Nonlinear FC wrote:No chance things die down. People have been pissed for a year and as that article points out, it's only getting worse for Trump.


I think so, too. If Trump stayed off Twitter, then perhaps the Republican outlook would improve. That's how it worked during the election. But he just can't stand to be out of the headlines.
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Re: Random Politics

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Coming off historically botched presidential election projections, I'm not going to be comfortable with any forecasting or polling for a long time. I'll worry right up until all of those motherfuckers are voted out, have resigned or are dead.
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Re: Random Politics

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Those 538 guys are smart. They'll have a true margin of error and a Russian adjusted one.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Joe K »

mister d wrote:Coming off historically botched presidential election projections, I'm not going to be comfortable with any forecasting or polling for a long time. I'll worry right up until all of those motherfuckers are voted out, have resigned or are dead.

Also, while I hope that it remains unpopular, the tax bill was a huge policy accomplishment for the GOP. I personally disagree with virtually all of the policy goals involved, but it's a pretty big rebuttal to the narrative that Trump "can't get anything done," which was probably a big factor in diminished GOP support for him. If the inevitable follow-up attempts to slash Social Security and Medicaid actually "succeed" before the midterms, then every major conservative publication will be calling Trump a historically great President.
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