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Trump
Jan 9, 2021 22:32:14 GMT -4
Post by themandalorian on Jan 9, 2021 22:32:14 GMT -4
Anyway, I probably seem like I'm picking on themandalorian , so I'm going to give it a rest. The last thing I want to do is like, scare off a forum member. I obviously just have... very different political views. I don't think you're a bad person, but I do think you get your information from some pretty shitty outlets, and I would be willing to bet I could guess several of your twitter follows. Regardless, I should probably get to work on something else other than arguing in the Trump thread. It's okay, let's just agree to disagree.
I'm 55, I'm a recent retiree and I'm on Twitter but I only follow mostly for hockey and football news. I follow a lot of financial people, Jon Kramer off of CNBC for example and because three of my four girls live in Sydney, Australia, Bangkok and Manhattan I follow my share of news feeds from those cities just so I know what is going on there. I have watched my share of Fox News over the years but I have reduced that especially since I retired. Hannity repeats the same talking points every night, I do watch Tucker because he has stories on that you wouldn't normally see on ( some he is way off on, some he is completely on point) and he will take Republicans to task when it should be done. I watch BBC World News and CNBC because there is a world view on both and even though both lean a bit left it isn't over the top obvious.
I have no idea how old you are or how long you have followed politics but I will say this. For the past 20 years Democrats have called any Republican who ran for President a racist including John McCain and Mitt Romney, it is like they are the boy who cried wolf and we know how that went so when you have a bigot like Trump in his voters don't take it as seriously because they have heard it for years and are tired of hearing it even when their voting decision should obviously take it into account.
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Trump
Jan 9, 2021 23:04:26 GMT -4
Post by Citris on Jan 9, 2021 23:04:26 GMT -4
It's okay, let's just agree to disagree.
I'm 55, I'm a recent retiree and I'm on Twitter but I only follow mostly for hockey and football news. I follow a lot of financial people, Jon Kramer off of CNBC for example and because three of my four girls live in Sydney, Australia, Bangkok and Manhattan I follow my share of news feeds from those cities just so I know what is going on there. I have watched my share of Fox News over the years but I have reduced that especially since I retired. Hannity repeats the same talking points every night, I do watch Tucker because he has stories on that you wouldn't normally see on ( some he is way off on, some he is completely on point) and he will take Republicans to task when it should be done. I watch BBC World News and CNBC because there is a world view on both and even though both lean a bit left it isn't over the top obvious.
I have no idea how old you are or how long you have followed politics but I will say this. For the past 20 years Democrats have called any Republican who ran for President a racist including John McCain and Mitt Romney, it is like they are the boy who cried wolf and we know how that went so when you have a bigot like Trump in his voters don't take it as seriously because they have heard it for years and are tired of hearing it even when their voting decision should obviously take it into account.
I'm a 33 year old trans woman. I know that my generation lives in a world much different than that of my parents. My parents had both dropped out of high school and owned 2 houses at my age. Now me and all of my friends are struggling just to pay rent on shitty apartments, a couple have houses, but have to rent out rooms to make ends meet... so, our perspectives on life are going to be vastly different. I mean your classic republicans ARE racist... but I mean so are a lot of democrats too. Racism isn't just when you scream the N word across the street at somebody or put on your hood, tho it is that to be sure... Racism is also the over-policing of black communities, ignoring systematic racism and the damage of Jim Crow laws that people alive today lived under. It's people brining up 911 to people like Ilhan Omar, to borrow an example from you. It's complaining about representation because your media isn't as white as you're used to etc. Obviously some forms of racism are worse than others, but they're all damaging. And trying to get people to reflect on behavior that may be racist triggers a defensive attitude and denial (the concept of white fragility). I see a world where the systems that we live under have failed us, where billionaires own politicians and write bills that allow them to pool more and more of the worlds wealth in their own pockets while the rest of us struggle to survive. Even tho we produce enough food that nobody need go hungry, and could produce enough homes that nobody need be homeless, we prioritize that 11th digit in Jeff Bezos' bank account over the lives of people. Anyway, sorry, down off my soap box haha. Neither part is going to fix any of this. Not as is. But the right is swinging alarmingly far toward Fascism... While the democrats kinda just wanna go back to lunch. I'll take the latter any day.
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Trump
Jan 9, 2021 23:32:12 GMT -4
Post by themandalorian on Jan 9, 2021 23:32:12 GMT -4
It's okay, let's just agree to disagree.
I'm 55, I'm a recent retiree and I'm on Twitter but I only follow mostly for hockey and football news. I follow a lot of financial people, Jon Kramer off of CNBC for example and because three of my four girls live in Sydney, Australia, Bangkok and Manhattan I follow my share of news feeds from those cities just so I know what is going on there. I have watched my share of Fox News over the years but I have reduced that especially since I retired. Hannity repeats the same talking points every night, I do watch Tucker because he has stories on that you wouldn't normally see on ( some he is way off on, some he is completely on point) and he will take Republicans to task when it should be done. I watch BBC World News and CNBC because there is a world view on both and even though both lean a bit left it isn't over the top obvious.
I have no idea how old you are or how long you have followed politics but I will say this. For the past 20 years Democrats have called any Republican who ran for President a racist including John McCain and Mitt Romney, it is like they are the boy who cried wolf and we know how that went so when you have a bigot like Trump in his voters don't take it as seriously because they have heard it for years and are tired of hearing it even when their voting decision should obviously take it into account.
I'm a 33 year old trans woman. I know that my generation lives in a world much different than that of my parents. My parents had both dropped out of high school and owned 2 houses at my age. Now me and all of my friends are struggling just to pay rent on shitty apartments, a couple have houses, but have to rent out rooms to make ends meet... so, our perspectives on life are going to be vastly different. I mean your classic republicans ARE racist... but I mean so are a lot of democrats too. Racism isn't just when you scream the N word across the street at somebody or put on your hood, tho it is that to be sure... Racism is also the over-policing of black communities, ignoring systematic racism and the damage of Jim Crow laws that people alive today lived under. It's people brining up 911 to people like Ilhan Omar, to borrow an example from you. It's complaining about representation because your media isn't as white as you're used to etc. Obviously some forms of racism are worse than others, but they're all damaging. And trying to get people to reflect on behavior that may be racist triggers a defensive attitude and denial (the concept of white fragility). I see a world where the systems that we live under have failed us, where billionaires own politicians and write bills that allow them to pool more and more of the worlds wealth in their own pockets while the rest of us struggle to survive. Even tho we produce enough food that nobody need go hungry, and could produce enough homes that nobody need be homeless, we prioritize that 11th digit in Jeff Bezos' bank account over the lives of people. Anyway, sorry, down off my soap box haha. Neither part is going to fix any of this. Not as is. But the right is swinging alarmingly far toward Fascism... While the democrats kinda just wanna go back to lunch. I'll take the latter any day. I lucked out, I grew up in a time when my parents didn't need to make a lot of money to have the house I grew up in. I graduated from SMU in 1987 , didn't have the debt that so many of my daughters' friends have now and got a great job right out of university and moved up really fast when you compare it to today's reality. I was able to travel with my future wife and we did the backpacking thing through Southeast Asia before it became the cool thing to do and became really commercialized in Bali and I still got the great job upon returning.
I hope things are going well for you with the change over or have you fully gone through with the process?
As far as Bezos goes we were part of the huge group that made him billions during Covid lockdown... I am pro-business but I have absolutely no problem with his taxes going up or any billionaires for that matter, all of them have made out like bandits during Covid.
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Trump
Jan 10, 2021 0:33:46 GMT -4
Post by Citris on Jan 10, 2021 0:33:46 GMT -4
I lucked out, I grew up in a time when my parents didn't need to make a lot of money to have the house I grew up in. I graduated from SMU in 1987 , didn't have the debt that so many of my daughters' friends have now and got a great job right out of university and moved up really fast when you compare it to today's reality. I was able to travel with my future wife and we did the backpacking thing through Southeast Asia before it became the cool thing to do and became really commercialized in Bali and I still got the great job upon returning.
I hope things are going well for you with the change over or have you fully gone through with the process?
As far as Bezos goes we were part of the huge group that made him billions during Covid lockdown... I am pro-business but I have absolutely no problem with his taxes going up or any billionaires for that matter, all of them have made out like bandits during Covid.
I'm not anti-business, but I am in favor of a more co-operative system where profits and decision making are more evenly shared. I wouldn't have a problem with Amazon if they paid their workers a living wage, which they can absolutely afford to do, and paid their fair share in taxes. I'm sure everyone who's worked corporate jobs knows the feeling of a know-nothing suit coming into you workplace and telling you how things should run despite never working your job a day in their life. Or the joys of performance metrics that are intentionally designed to be impossible to meet, so they can always have an excuse to deny you a raise or let you go on a whim should they choose. tl;dr - I don't consider myself a communist, more of a market-socialist / socdem. Anyway, thanks for asking about the transition. I've been on hormones for about 6 months, I've noticed some changes in my body that I'm really happy about, my face is starting to "soften" a bit and my hair looks healthier. I've just recently gotten the confidence to go out in public in women's clothes without a wig which I relied on for a good while. Not to get into my life story, but, hormones are going to be a lifetime thing, but, I should keep seeing changes for another 2 years or so.
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Post by lirette on Jan 10, 2021 0:58:35 GMT -4
[/quote] [/div] For all of Trump's faults he is the first President in decades that didn't start a new war that didn't already exist. That is why Pentagon leadership hated him , because he tried as much as he could to get troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. His rhetoric was incendiary and at times irresponsible but he acted early on back in 2017 with the strikes in Syria which showed he would act if the call had to be made which happened when Asaad used chemical weapons.
[/quote] Ok he didn't start a war, but then he spread disinformation for 2 months about a rigged election resulting in a violent coup attempt killing 5 people and having thousands of people only 1 door away from the entire congress. I don't know how you can really have any meaningful conversation on policy of 2 parties when one is actively trying to destroy democracy. The scarier part is many republicans are backing this effort, this problem isnt gone yet. Regardless of political beliefs a threat to democracy should scare everyone of us. **edit. Sorry for this horrible quoting job.
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Trump
Jan 10, 2021 18:41:16 GMT -4
Post by themandalorian on Jan 10, 2021 18:41:16 GMT -4
It appears the Dems won't be able to impeach Trump by the 20th but they can still do it after which means he cannot run for public office ever which is great for the country and for the Republicans.
Losing the Senate can be seen as a silver lining as hopefully it means Mitch will be gone as the leader for the GOP there... he is one of the worst ever. I hope the Dems get rid of the filibuster, I am of the belief that if you have a majority then you should have the right to use it - don't like it? Fine, win the Senate in the next election and hope you have the House. Harry Reid removing the Senate filibuster on judges is the reason 3 SCJs were confirmed in Trump's only term. I think removing the filibuster will lead to more things actually getting done and if you don't like it then don't lose elections. I hope Lindsay Graham is taken off the judiciary committee and I think Ted Cruz has basically disqualified himself from running for President in 2024 with his support for Trump after it was obvious that Trump lost in a fair election.
I look at it this way right now, even if Biden was every bit as bad as my impression of him is he would still be better than what Trump has been. I talked to my daughter who lives in Manhattan today and told her I was embarrassed I supported him. She said she was disappointed that she couldn't vote and have the chance to be part of the effort to vote him out.
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Trump
Jan 10, 2021 22:01:59 GMT -4
Post by Captain Obvious on Jan 10, 2021 22:01:59 GMT -4
I lucked out, I grew up in a time when my parents didn't need to make a lot of money to have the house I grew up in. I graduated from SMU in 1987 , didn't have the debt that so many of my daughters' friends have now and got a great job right out of university and moved up really fast when you compare it to today's reality. I was able to travel with my future wife and we did the backpacking thing through Southeast Asia before it became the cool thing to do and became really commercialized in Bali and I still got the great job upon returning.
I hope things are going well for you with the change over or have you fully gone through with the process?
As far as Bezos goes we were part of the huge group that made him billions during Covid lockdown... I am pro-business but I have absolutely no problem with his taxes going up or any billionaires for that matter, all of them have made out like bandits during Covid.
I'm not anti-business, but I am in favor of a more co-operative system where profits and decision making are more evenly shared. I wouldn't have a problem with Amazon if they paid their workers a living wage, which they can absolutely afford to do, and paid their fair share in taxes. I'm sure everyone who's worked corporate jobs knows the feeling of a know-nothing suit coming into you workplace and telling you how things should run despite never working your job a day in their life. Or the joys of performance metrics that are intentionally designed to be impossible to meet, so they can always have an excuse to deny you a raise or let you go on a whim should they choose. tl;dr - I don't consider myself a communist, more of a market-socialist / socdem. Anyway, thanks for asking about the transition. I've been on hormones for about 6 months, I've noticed some changes in my body that I'm really happy about, my face is starting to "soften" a bit and my hair looks healthier. I've just recently gotten the confidence to go out in public in women's clothes without a wig which I relied on for a good while. Not to get into my life story, but, hormones are going to be a lifetime thing, but, I should keep seeing changes for another 2 years or so. Amazon is a perfect example of a broken Anerican system. You can have capitalism where mega corporations pay their share of taxes and their whole workforce doesn't make minimum wage. Meanwhile Bezos is worth 90 billion which is 100 times what he could ever spend.
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Trump
Jan 11, 2021 9:54:01 GMT -4
Post by Jack Bauer on Jan 11, 2021 9:54:01 GMT -4
I'm not anti-business, but I am in favor of a more co-operative system where profits and decision making are more evenly shared. I wouldn't have a problem with Amazon if they paid their workers a living wage, which they can absolutely afford to do, and paid their fair share in taxes. I'm sure everyone who's worked corporate jobs knows the feeling of a know-nothing suit coming into you workplace and telling you how things should run despite never working your job a day in their life. Or the joys of performance metrics that are intentionally designed to be impossible to meet, so they can always have an excuse to deny you a raise or let you go on a whim should they choose. tl;dr - I don't consider myself a communist, more of a market-socialist / socdem. Anyway, thanks for asking about the transition. I've been on hormones for about 6 months, I've noticed some changes in my body that I'm really happy about, my face is starting to "soften" a bit and my hair looks healthier. I've just recently gotten the confidence to go out in public in women's clothes without a wig which I relied on for a good while. Not to get into my life story, but, hormones are going to be a lifetime thing, but, I should keep seeing changes for another 2 years or so. Amazon is a perfect example of a broken Anerican system. You can have capitalism where mega corporations pay their share of taxes and their whole workforce doesn't make minimum wage. Meanwhile Bezos is worth 90 billion which is 100 times what he could ever spend. And people are missing the boat on how to "fix" an amazon. They think they need to tax Bezos. Acting like all his employees aren't part of his success. Companies like amazon should be legislated to provide health care, fair middle class wages, sick time, vacation, retirement plans, etc. But they get away paying minimum wage to a lot of positions. Once a companies revenue reaches a certain amount the thresholds of expectations from working there need to be raised. If the company is going to profit X billion dollars in a fiscal year then there should be some expectation from workers of higher wages and better perks to keep that gravy train rolling. But government in the US has them all convinced that if anything Bezos needs to give the states/feds the money in taxes to dish out welfare and food stamps to help spread the wealth. And the right wing especially cling to that model because the thought someone might get a "handout" from the government to improve their lives in insulting to them. No person working for a successful company should have to work multiple jobs to afford the basics of humanity. Americans calls that hard work and character building. Yet reward the Bezos for ALL the combined hard work and think it's ok for his family to live for eternity off his money but the family of the single mother working a morning shift and McDonalds and days at Amazon's warehouse are supposed to stay in the poverty trap. It's pretty fucked up.
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Trump
Jan 11, 2021 9:58:35 GMT -4
Post by Captain Obvious on Jan 11, 2021 9:58:35 GMT -4
Amazon is a perfect example of a broken Anerican system. You can have capitalism where mega corporations pay their share of taxes and their whole workforce doesn't make minimum wage. Meanwhile Bezos is worth 90 billion which is 100 times what he could ever spend. And people are missing the boat on how to "fix" an amazon. They think they need to tax Bezos. Acting like all his employees aren't part of his success. Companies like amazon should be legislated to provide health care, fair middle class wages, sick time, vacation, retirement plans, etc. But they get away paying minimum wage to a lot of positions. Once a companies revenue reaches a certain amount the thresholds of expectations from working there need to be raised. If the company is going to profit X billion dollars in a fiscal year then there should be some expectation from workers of higher wages and better perks to keep that gravy train rolling. But government in the US has them all convinced that if anything Bezos needs to give the states/feds the money in taxes to dish out welfare and food stamps to help spread the wealth. And the right wing especially cling to that model because the thought someone might get a "handout" from the government to improve their lives in insulting to them. No person working for a successful company should have to work multiple jobs to afford the basics of humanity. Americans calls that hard work and character building. Yet reward the Bezos for ALL the combined hard work and think it's ok for his family to live for eternity off his money but the family of the single mother working a morning shift and McDonalds and days at Amazon's warehouse are supposed to stay in the poverty trap. It's pretty fucked up. The same applies for Wal mart. The right has a big donors pushing that paying money into social programs is "socialism". It's all a PR campaign no different than Pharma companies having a PR campaign to make opioids popular and palatable for doctors to prescribe.
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Trump
Jan 11, 2021 10:03:16 GMT -4
Post by Jack Bauer on Jan 11, 2021 10:03:16 GMT -4
And people are missing the boat on how to "fix" an amazon. They think they need to tax Bezos. Acting like all his employees aren't part of his success. Companies like amazon should be legislated to provide health care, fair middle class wages, sick time, vacation, retirement plans, etc. But they get away paying minimum wage to a lot of positions. Once a companies revenue reaches a certain amount the thresholds of expectations from working there need to be raised. If the company is going to profit X billion dollars in a fiscal year then there should be some expectation from workers of higher wages and better perks to keep that gravy train rolling. But government in the US has them all convinced that if anything Bezos needs to give the states/feds the money in taxes to dish out welfare and food stamps to help spread the wealth. And the right wing especially cling to that model because the thought someone might get a "handout" from the government to improve their lives in insulting to them. No person working for a successful company should have to work multiple jobs to afford the basics of humanity. Americans calls that hard work and character building. Yet reward the Bezos for ALL the combined hard work and think it's ok for his family to live for eternity off his money but the family of the single mother working a morning shift and McDonalds and days at Amazon's warehouse are supposed to stay in the poverty trap. It's pretty fucked up. The same applies for Wal mart. The right has a big donors pushing that paying money into social programs is "socialism". It's all a PR campaign no different than Pharma companies having a PR campaign to make opioids popular and palatable for doctors to prescribe. Yup it applies to all those chains. McDonalds, Burger King, Tim Hortons, etc. But they lobby governments, legally, to bend/create laws to help them escape any penalties for them they do screw up. And you're bang on with the medical point of view. The amount of people on medication for sleeping issues without ever trying anything natural just blows me away. Especially people 50+. But prescribing something like cannabis to try and treat an issue isn't something big pharma makes any money off of.
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Trump
Jan 11, 2021 12:48:14 GMT -4
via mobile
Post by yesisaiditfirst on Jan 11, 2021 12:48:14 GMT -4
The same applies for Wal mart. The right has a big donors pushing that paying money into social programs is "socialism". It's all a PR campaign no different than Pharma companies having a PR campaign to make opioids popular and palatable for doctors to prescribe. Yup it applies to all those chains. McDonalds, Burger King, Tim Hortons, etc. But they lobby governments, legally, to bend/create laws to help them escape any penalties for them they do screw up. And you're bang on with the medical point of view. The amount of people on medication for sleeping issues without ever trying anything natural just blows me away. Especially people 50+. But prescribing something like cannabis to try and treat an issue isn't something big pharma makes any money off of. the govt also is great at picking winners or losers too. Think back to SNC Lavalin. It's a company who has lost priviledge and is not allowed to bid on projects in several countries around the world. The World Bank project banned them for 10 years. So who plays ball with them anyway? Canada. I'm sure any stripe of Canadian govt would but we are supposed to be an ethical country that should be against exploiting citizens in other countries and against bribery in those places. There were many sordid things (like procuring prostitutes for foreign officials) to get contracts and they were caught a few times. The bigger you are the rules are not the same. We were told that Canadians would suffer if SNC were punished here. But that's what I mean by picking winners. There is no way a little guy can bid on a contract if the big guy (SNC) can bend rules avoid criminal punishment and still play in the game. It's never a level field. Canada govt of the day chose to make different rules for SNC when we know if they were really punished here as they are in other places in the world it wouldnt mean all these Canadians out of work. It would have been an opportunity for those good employees to be picked up by smaller SNC competitors based in Canada and get them in the game at the expense of the firm that dropped the ball. With regards to the Walmart, CostCo, Loblaws, Amazon they pay low wages because we tolerate it. There is always a more expensive smaller (slower) local option. If we want to be an ethical society we have to make a shift at grass roots that means consumer decisions. Otherwise it's just talk. Every employee at those businesses could shift to other businesses if the work were spread around creating real competition. In absence of competition of scale you get what we have.
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Trump
Jan 11, 2021 19:34:15 GMT -4
Post by themandalorian on Jan 11, 2021 19:34:15 GMT -4
I normally don't read the Washington Post but got this from my daughter's boyfriend from down in NY today and read this and this little blurb really says it -
"Some years ago, I wrote a book arguing that Democrats should learn from the things Republicans did well. One of these was that the GOP had a simple foundation of shared beliefs that could be easily communicated to voters. Ask a Republican running for any office from dogcatcher all the way up to president what it meant to be a conservative, and they’d tick off some version of the same four pillars: small government, low taxes, a strong military and traditional social values."
1) Republicans had the Presidency, Senate and House and didn't keep spending in line and that was before Covid hit.
2) Taxes were lowered but personal tax cuts had to be extended and there is absolutely no chance of that now - I don't even think that was in Trump's platform... if he had a platform that even existed in the first place.
3) They still believe in a strong military and spending went up there.
4) Some Republicans are the biggest hypocrites on traditional social values ever.
The true Republican base still believes in these pillars, they need to get back to that and make sure they get people who truly believe in these pillars to run and get rid of the fringe haters, a party cannot be credible if it is taking orders from the wackos in QAnon. If you can't get independents to vote for you then you don't deserve to be elected.
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Trump
Jan 20, 2021 10:51:55 GMT -4
Post by Captain Obvious on Jan 20, 2021 10:51:55 GMT -4
Trump pardoning Steve Bannon is a fitting end to his presidency, the guy conned Trump's MAGA supporters to donate 25 million to a border wall that was never going to be built and it was just a slush fund for Bannon. The bad news for Bannon is that states can still file fraud charges on this as the donations come from most states. globalnews.ca/news/7308066/steve-bannon-fraud-trial-date/
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Trump
Jan 20, 2021 11:26:41 GMT -4
Post by hal on Jan 20, 2021 11:26:41 GMT -4
The Funny Part of his Leaving was when Air Force One took off ....The Speakers were blaring .......Frank Sinatra's........ "I did it my way " ......Arrogant right to the Bitter End .
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Trump
Jan 20, 2021 16:41:13 GMT -4
Post by Kingrat on Jan 20, 2021 16:41:13 GMT -4
now can we get this thread removed my 1st and last post here
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