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United Kingdom13775 Posts
I don't see any viable replacement for the absurd slop of compromise that is Obamacare other than universal healthcare. Don't think we're there yet though.
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On January 13 2017 03:22 farvacola wrote:
Memes weren't "what won the election," but white nationalists have way better memes than centrist Democrats, that much is clear.
The left will continue to have the crappier memes until it ditches its slavish adherence to the radically politically correct.
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I don't see any viable replacements, because of scummy politicians and voters who don't know how to judge; it's not that hard to craft alternate policies which would still accomplish similar goals.
it's also not that hard to craft a "small government" thing which still partially achieves those goals. i'ts just not what they actually want to do.
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On January 13 2017 03:38 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 02:56 oBlade wrote:On January 13 2017 02:52 Gorsameth wrote:On January 13 2017 02:48 oBlade wrote:On January 12 2017 23:15 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 12 2017 08:27 oBlade wrote:On January 12 2017 08:07 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 12 2017 07:51 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:fivethirtyeight seems to have a good summary of the problem. One of the most interesting moments in Donald Trump’s news conference Wednesday came when Trump wasn’t even on the podium: Sheri Dillon, one of Trump’s lawyers, spent several minutes explaining why Trump couldn’t realistically put his assets in a blind trust, as many ethics watchdogs have demanded.
Dillon’s argument was complex, and she may very well be right. But that doesn’t mean concerns about Trump’s conflicts of interest are invalid.
The words “blind trust” have been thrown around a lot in recent weeks, but it’s worth explaining what that phrase really means. True blind trusts aim to shield politicians or other public figures from conflicts of interest (real or perceived) by ensuring that they have no control over their assets, or even know what those assets are.
A typical case works like this: Hypothetical Sen. Jane Johnson owns $2 million in stock in the tech company where she used to be an executive and an additional $3 million in stocks, bonds and other investments. She transfers her assets into a blind trust, overseen by an independent trustee. That trustee then sells the existing holdings (either all at once or over time) so that when Johnson has to vote on a bill affecting the tech industry — or even affecting her old company — she doesn’t know whether that vote could affect her personal finances.
But Trump’s situation is far from typical. Most of his wealth isn’t held in stocks or bonds that can be easily sold; it’s in a company that he owns and operates, it’s in buildings and golf courses around the world, and it’s in his personal brand (and the licensing deals based on it). Simply transferring his assets to a blind trust wouldn’t accomplish much as long as the company remained in business. “President Trump can’t un-know he owns Trump Tower,” Dillon said Wednesday.
To put his assets in a true blind trust, Trump would need to liquidate his assets by selling the company and its holdings, stripping his name off his hotels and resorts, and canceling his licensing deals. Dillon on Wednesday argued that such a plan would be impractical if not impossible. Some of her reasons boiled down to one: It would cost Trump a lot of money. She argued, for example, that if Trump sold his assets without retaining the rights to his brand, he would “greatly diminish the value of the assets and create a fire sale.” In other words, she said, the assets would be worth far less without Trump’s name on them.
But there are practical hurdles to a true blind trust even if you aren’t worried about Trump’s personal net worth. The process of selling his assets would take time, perhaps years. And because the sales would undoubtedly make headlines, Trump could easily keep track of what he still owned and what he didn’t, meaning that even then the trust wouldn’t be truly “blind.” (It would also create the strange situation of having a business named after the president of the United States but not controlled by him.)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-one-has-a-good-plan-to-get-rid-of-trumps-conflicts-including-trump/ That being said, another really simple solution to prevent conflict of interest is simply not to elect a billionaire or anyone obscenely rich, and... Oh wait. I'm jocking but I'm serious. The idea that having made a shitton of money qualifies you for office is typically american and bat shit crazy. It's not limited to Trump, but i always cringe when i hear people complain about the porosity between politics and bug money. Hey, what about not voting for millionaires and even less for billionaires if you don't want your country to be a ploutocracy? Your US bashing aside, where there should be a difference is that wealth per se isn't a bad thing if you drop the revolutionary undertones. What we don't want is people using public office to enrich themselves and entangling policy with their own greed. There's an argument to be made that people who are independently comfortable are if anything in a position to be less susceptible to that. Well what you want is someone who works for the public good and in the interest of everyone. I don't think it's too marxist to say that if your lifegoal has been to make an obscene amount of money for yourself, it's unlikely your vision of a good society is based on the common good. Also one of the great challenges of our time is inequalities. Not sure billionaires are really good at tackling those. In general, i believe that the super rich should be kept as far as possible away from politics, simply because their interest and the interest of the majority (working class and middle class) don't align at all. The closest to Trump i can think of in recent time is Berlusconi. On top of being one of the most embarassing time in Italian history, his time as PM has been one giant conflict of interest. I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the world by conflating wealth with greed and opulence. Controlling capital is a form of power to run the things that let our world turn. Just because someone has a smaller net worth, it doesn't mean they're proportionally less consumed by avarice, it just means they haven't gotten to the same level, by whatever combination of different priorities, skill, and chance. To wit, people aren't Cincinnatus simply because they're only upper middle class. I get if you don't like Berlusconi or even Trump, but the outlier net worth of one guy who managed to get the highest office doesn't extrapolate broadly. I don't get the sense you've looked through wider politics (I haven't either) because off the top of my head, it would be easy for a lot of especially career politicians, the people who are supposed to be competent experts that we want to perpetuate, to be millionaires. A million dollars isn't that much. Mainly this is chastising success. The problem with Trump is not that he is rich. Its that is not willing to follow basic standards to limit conflicts of interest. "He has to much stuff to do so" is not an excuse. He knew what he was getting into when he decided to run. That wasn't the subject but I'll take you up on it, you think he should have started liquidating his global multibillion dollar empire in June 2015? Or even earlier? No I don't think he needed to do anything until he won, I didn't say that anywhere. But now that he has won he needs to take proper steps and not the half arsed shit he is doing.
Oh, okay, I see. When you said "he has too much stuff to do" is nonsense it isn't because you thought he should have sold everything before he entered the race, it's that you do think it's possible for him to do whatever you think he should do after election day.
On January 13 2017 03:41 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 03:11 oBlade wrote:On January 13 2017 02:58 TheTenthDoc wrote:On January 13 2017 02:56 oBlade wrote:On January 13 2017 02:52 Gorsameth wrote:On January 13 2017 02:48 oBlade wrote:On January 12 2017 23:15 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 12 2017 08:27 oBlade wrote:On January 12 2017 08:07 Biff The Understudy wrote:That being said, another really simple solution to prevent conflict of interest is simply not to elect a billionaire or anyone obscenely rich, and... Oh wait. I'm jocking but I'm serious. The idea that having made a shitton of money qualifies you for office is typically american and bat shit crazy. It's not limited to Trump, but i always cringe when i hear people complain about the porosity between politics and bug money. Hey, what about not voting for millionaires and even less for billionaires if you don't want your country to be a ploutocracy? Your US bashing aside, where there should be a difference is that wealth per se isn't a bad thing if you drop the revolutionary undertones. What we don't want is people using public office to enrich themselves and entangling policy with their own greed. There's an argument to be made that people who are independently comfortable are if anything in a position to be less susceptible to that. Well what you want is someone who works for the public good and in the interest of everyone. I don't think it's too marxist to say that if your lifegoal has been to make an obscene amount of money for yourself, it's unlikely your vision of a good society is based on the common good. Also one of the great challenges of our time is inequalities. Not sure billionaires are really good at tackling those. In general, i believe that the super rich should be kept as far as possible away from politics, simply because their interest and the interest of the majority (working class and middle class) don't align at all. The closest to Trump i can think of in recent time is Berlusconi. On top of being one of the most embarassing time in Italian history, his time as PM has been one giant conflict of interest. I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the world by conflating wealth with greed and opulence. Controlling capital is a form of power to run the things that let our world turn. Just because someone has a smaller net worth, it doesn't mean they're proportionally less consumed by avarice, it just means they haven't gotten to the same level, by whatever combination of different priorities, skill, and chance. To wit, people aren't Cincinnatus simply because they're only upper middle class. I get if you don't like Berlusconi or even Trump, but the outlier net worth of one guy who managed to get the highest office doesn't extrapolate broadly. I don't get the sense you've looked through wider politics (I haven't either) because off the top of my head, it would be easy for a lot of especially career politicians, the people who are supposed to be competent experts that we want to perpetuate, to be millionaires. A million dollars isn't that much. Mainly this is chastising success. The problem with Trump is not that he is rich. Its that is not willing to follow basic standards to limit conflicts of interest. "He has to much stuff to do so" is not an excuse. He knew what he was getting into when he decided to run. That wasn't the subject but I'll take you up on it, you think he should have started liquidating his global multibillion dollar empire in June 2015? Or even earlier? Probably, yes. If he was indeed serious about winning the presidency he should have done the research to assess what was necessary under current good practice and law, rather than babbling about blind trusts at debates and not looking into the matter at all. If he truly wanted to MAGA a few hundred million of lost profits out of his billions seems a small price to pay, yeah? Ultimately, though, the problem is that he is someone who has spent his whole life believing rules are for other people and then can be changed at the drop of a hat. This is a tremendously poisonous attitude for anyone with power to have-even YuGiOh figured that out. That would have been so satisfying for everyone who got emotionally attached to the election, a DJT who lost and had no company to go back to. Just so he could measure up to something that's not a legal standard, but rather defined by whatever's in our heads. If only he'd mentioned that months ago during debates instead of telling us he was going to create a blind trust... At least you seem to agree he's a shortsighted liar who didn't read up on what's proper in "our heads" because he doesn't think rules apply to him.
On January 13 2017 03:41 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 03:11 oBlade wrote:On January 13 2017 02:58 TheTenthDoc wrote:On January 13 2017 02:56 oBlade wrote:On January 13 2017 02:52 Gorsameth wrote:On January 13 2017 02:48 oBlade wrote:On January 12 2017 23:15 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 12 2017 08:27 oBlade wrote:On January 12 2017 08:07 Biff The Understudy wrote:That being said, another really simple solution to prevent conflict of interest is simply not to elect a billionaire or anyone obscenely rich, and... Oh wait. I'm jocking but I'm serious. The idea that having made a shitton of money qualifies you for office is typically american and bat shit crazy. It's not limited to Trump, but i always cringe when i hear people complain about the porosity between politics and bug money. Hey, what about not voting for millionaires and even less for billionaires if you don't want your country to be a ploutocracy? Your US bashing aside, where there should be a difference is that wealth per se isn't a bad thing if you drop the revolutionary undertones. What we don't want is people using public office to enrich themselves and entangling policy with their own greed. There's an argument to be made that people who are independently comfortable are if anything in a position to be less susceptible to that. Well what you want is someone who works for the public good and in the interest of everyone. I don't think it's too marxist to say that if your lifegoal has been to make an obscene amount of money for yourself, it's unlikely your vision of a good society is based on the common good. Also one of the great challenges of our time is inequalities. Not sure billionaires are really good at tackling those. In general, i believe that the super rich should be kept as far as possible away from politics, simply because their interest and the interest of the majority (working class and middle class) don't align at all. The closest to Trump i can think of in recent time is Berlusconi. On top of being one of the most embarassing time in Italian history, his time as PM has been one giant conflict of interest. I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the world by conflating wealth with greed and opulence. Controlling capital is a form of power to run the things that let our world turn. Just because someone has a smaller net worth, it doesn't mean they're proportionally less consumed by avarice, it just means they haven't gotten to the same level, by whatever combination of different priorities, skill, and chance. To wit, people aren't Cincinnatus simply because they're only upper middle class. I get if you don't like Berlusconi or even Trump, but the outlier net worth of one guy who managed to get the highest office doesn't extrapolate broadly. I don't get the sense you've looked through wider politics (I haven't either) because off the top of my head, it would be easy for a lot of especially career politicians, the people who are supposed to be competent experts that we want to perpetuate, to be millionaires. A million dollars isn't that much. Mainly this is chastising success. The problem with Trump is not that he is rich. Its that is not willing to follow basic standards to limit conflicts of interest. "He has to much stuff to do so" is not an excuse. He knew what he was getting into when he decided to run. That wasn't the subject but I'll take you up on it, you think he should have started liquidating his global multibillion dollar empire in June 2015? Or even earlier? Probably, yes. If he was indeed serious about winning the presidency he should have done the research to assess what was necessary under current good practice and law, rather than babbling about blind trusts at debates and not looking into the matter at all. If he truly wanted to MAGA a few hundred million of lost profits out of his billions seems a small price to pay, yeah? Ultimately, though, the problem is that he is someone who has spent his whole life believing rules are for other people and then can be changed at the drop of a hat. This is a tremendously poisonous attitude for anyone with power to have-even YuGiOh figured that out. That would have been so satisfying for everyone who got emotionally attached to the election, a DJT who lost and had no company to go back to. Just so he could measure up to something that's not a legal standard, but rather defined by whatever's in our heads. If only he'd mentioned that months ago during debates instead of telling us he was going to create a blind trust... At least you seem to agree he's a shortsighted liar who didn't read up on what's proper in "our heads" because he doesn't think rules apply to him.
It was obvious a blind trust was never an option. Perhaps opponents and the national news media could have spent more time on the conversation of what would actually have been reasonable to expect him to do if he won? But that would have required admitting the possibility that he might win. The thing is that satisfying TheTenthDoc is not a legal standard he's required to meet and since you're not talking specifics I don't know if there are really any criteria behind this.
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On January 13 2017 03:54 LegalLord wrote:
I don't see any viable replacement for the absurd slop of compromise that is Obamacare other than universal healthcare. Don't think we're there yet though.
So you agree that repealing Obamacare is a terrible idea, despite it being an absurd slop of compromise?
Because insofar as I have understood absolutely nobody, not even Obama, thinks Obamacare is a good solution. It's just something that could be put into place that was better than what came before and would work until an actual solution could be crafted. But repealing that stopgap plan without actually having put in the work to come up with a real solution seems shortsighted and prone to cast a large percentage of the population into incertitude, and probably uninsured status.
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On January 13 2017 03:50 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 03:29 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 03:20 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:09 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 02:54 LegalLord wrote:
Yes, those utterly despicable populists abandoned all reason to victimize poor, poor Hillary Clinton, a delectably electable candidate who should have never lost because she had the only policy that made sense - the people were just too liberal or deplorable to see her truly brilliant vision. I was not arguing for poor-poor Hillary, just restating the events that transpired. She got 3 million more votes than her opponent, so it's clear what the choice was for the American people. Where she lost was in strategic voting, unable to get word-of-mouth traction because social media was inundated by memes instead of discourse--an axis she was weak on. As such, costs to get door-knockers and precinct walkers was much higher for her than normal elections, forcing her team to be more deliberate in their GOTV strat. She lost according to the rules of the game as it was played. Trump won the votes where he needed to win them, and he had a pretty solid electoral victory, so I don't see the win as illegitimate in that sense. Memes weren't what won the election though - it was a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with Hillary and everything she represents, and in the swing states that dissatisfaction just happened to be sufficient to get people to suck it up and vote for a candidate they didn't really like who claimed to virulently stand against those things. I have not argued for the win being legitimate or illegitimate, I am arguing that despite Hillary having more votes, she was unable to take advantage of doing well on non-social media mediums (debates, policy, media, polls, etc...) but word of mouth popularity usually determines your GOTV costs (volunteers vs paid staff) which meant that "safe states" like Michigan and Pennsylvania were underfunded due to poll predictions telling the Hillary team to shift expenditures to other states. You don't have a 3 million popular vote lead because people are dissatisfied with you. You don't get the 2nd most votes in American history because people are dissatisfied with you. You lose despite the popular vote when you mismanage the street presence of your campaign in the last month. She has a 3 million popular vote lead because a lot of people hate her opponent. She has fewer votes than Obama whereas Trump gained two million on Romney.
And the 3million more votes she got over Bernie Sanders? Was that Trump also?
What about the 200k more votes she got over Obama? Was that Trump also?
What about her Senate runs? Did she also win that because of hatred for Trump?
What about passing the bar? Did they only give her points because of hate for Trump?
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On January 13 2017 03:59 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 03:50 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:29 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 03:20 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:09 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 02:54 LegalLord wrote:
Yes, those utterly despicable populists abandoned all reason to victimize poor, poor Hillary Clinton, a delectably electable candidate who should have never lost because she had the only policy that made sense - the people were just too liberal or deplorable to see her truly brilliant vision. I was not arguing for poor-poor Hillary, just restating the events that transpired. She got 3 million more votes than her opponent, so it's clear what the choice was for the American people. Where she lost was in strategic voting, unable to get word-of-mouth traction because social media was inundated by memes instead of discourse--an axis she was weak on. As such, costs to get door-knockers and precinct walkers was much higher for her than normal elections, forcing her team to be more deliberate in their GOTV strat. She lost according to the rules of the game as it was played. Trump won the votes where he needed to win them, and he had a pretty solid electoral victory, so I don't see the win as illegitimate in that sense. Memes weren't what won the election though - it was a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with Hillary and everything she represents, and in the swing states that dissatisfaction just happened to be sufficient to get people to suck it up and vote for a candidate they didn't really like who claimed to virulently stand against those things. I have not argued for the win being legitimate or illegitimate, I am arguing that despite Hillary having more votes, she was unable to take advantage of doing well on non-social media mediums (debates, policy, media, polls, etc...) but word of mouth popularity usually determines your GOTV costs (volunteers vs paid staff) which meant that "safe states" like Michigan and Pennsylvania were underfunded due to poll predictions telling the Hillary team to shift expenditures to other states. You don't have a 3 million popular vote lead because people are dissatisfied with you. You don't get the 2nd most votes in American history because people are dissatisfied with you. You lose despite the popular vote when you mismanage the street presence of your campaign in the last month. She has a 3 million popular vote lead because a lot of people hate her opponent. She has fewer votes than Obama whereas Trump gained two million on Romney. And the 3million more votes she got over Bernie Sanders? Was that Trump also? What about the 200k more votes she got over Obama? Was that Trump also? What about her Senate runs? Did she also win that because of hatred for Trump? What about passing the bar? Did they only give her points because of hate for Trump?
She lost to Donald grab them by the pussy Trump. She's the worst major nominee of all time for even having that election be close, let alone losing.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On January 13 2017 03:59 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 03:50 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:29 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 03:20 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:09 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 02:54 LegalLord wrote:
Yes, those utterly despicable populists abandoned all reason to victimize poor, poor Hillary Clinton, a delectably electable candidate who should have never lost because she had the only policy that made sense - the people were just too liberal or deplorable to see her truly brilliant vision. I was not arguing for poor-poor Hillary, just restating the events that transpired. She got 3 million more votes than her opponent, so it's clear what the choice was for the American people. Where she lost was in strategic voting, unable to get word-of-mouth traction because social media was inundated by memes instead of discourse--an axis she was weak on. As such, costs to get door-knockers and precinct walkers was much higher for her than normal elections, forcing her team to be more deliberate in their GOTV strat. She lost according to the rules of the game as it was played. Trump won the votes where he needed to win them, and he had a pretty solid electoral victory, so I don't see the win as illegitimate in that sense. Memes weren't what won the election though - it was a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with Hillary and everything she represents, and in the swing states that dissatisfaction just happened to be sufficient to get people to suck it up and vote for a candidate they didn't really like who claimed to virulently stand against those things. I have not argued for the win being legitimate or illegitimate, I am arguing that despite Hillary having more votes, she was unable to take advantage of doing well on non-social media mediums (debates, policy, media, polls, etc...) but word of mouth popularity usually determines your GOTV costs (volunteers vs paid staff) which meant that "safe states" like Michigan and Pennsylvania were underfunded due to poll predictions telling the Hillary team to shift expenditures to other states. You don't have a 3 million popular vote lead because people are dissatisfied with you. You don't get the 2nd most votes in American history because people are dissatisfied with you. You lose despite the popular vote when you mismanage the street presence of your campaign in the last month. She has a 3 million popular vote lead because a lot of people hate her opponent. She has fewer votes than Obama whereas Trump gained two million on Romney. And the 3million more votes she got over Bernie Sanders? Was that Trump also? What about the 200k more votes she got over Obama? Was that Trump also? What about her Senate runs? Did she also win that because of hatred for Trump? What about passing the bar? Did they only give her points because of hate for Trump?
Sanders isn't a competitive candidate. She turned what should be a 5% walk-over into a 40% almost-threat, even after DNC collusion. Though he was my favorite choice of the four "viable" candidates it does not escape my attention that his policies as put forth are not viable and he is clueless on FP.
2016 Election Clinton 65,844,954 wiki
2012 Election Obama 65,915,795 wiki
Or did you mean in the primaries, where that's only true if you count that Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan? And sure, that's some solid votes - but she was also fighting a charismatic nobody in that race while being herself very well known.
Sure, she won handily in her home state, the Democratic stronghold of New York - in a noncompetitive primary and a safe general.
You will find a historical trend that she doesn't win competitive races - and if she retires now, she never will. Indeed, she turns easy walk-overs into competitive races in order to be able to say that she won a competitive race - or in the case of Obama or Trump, lost them.
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On January 13 2017 04:13 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 03:59 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 03:50 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:29 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 03:20 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:09 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 02:54 LegalLord wrote:
Yes, those utterly despicable populists abandoned all reason to victimize poor, poor Hillary Clinton, a delectably electable candidate who should have never lost because she had the only policy that made sense - the people were just too liberal or deplorable to see her truly brilliant vision. I was not arguing for poor-poor Hillary, just restating the events that transpired. She got 3 million more votes than her opponent, so it's clear what the choice was for the American people. Where she lost was in strategic voting, unable to get word-of-mouth traction because social media was inundated by memes instead of discourse--an axis she was weak on. As such, costs to get door-knockers and precinct walkers was much higher for her than normal elections, forcing her team to be more deliberate in their GOTV strat. She lost according to the rules of the game as it was played. Trump won the votes where he needed to win them, and he had a pretty solid electoral victory, so I don't see the win as illegitimate in that sense. Memes weren't what won the election though - it was a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with Hillary and everything she represents, and in the swing states that dissatisfaction just happened to be sufficient to get people to suck it up and vote for a candidate they didn't really like who claimed to virulently stand against those things. I have not argued for the win being legitimate or illegitimate, I am arguing that despite Hillary having more votes, she was unable to take advantage of doing well on non-social media mediums (debates, policy, media, polls, etc...) but word of mouth popularity usually determines your GOTV costs (volunteers vs paid staff) which meant that "safe states" like Michigan and Pennsylvania were underfunded due to poll predictions telling the Hillary team to shift expenditures to other states. You don't have a 3 million popular vote lead because people are dissatisfied with you. You don't get the 2nd most votes in American history because people are dissatisfied with you. You lose despite the popular vote when you mismanage the street presence of your campaign in the last month. She has a 3 million popular vote lead because a lot of people hate her opponent. She has fewer votes than Obama whereas Trump gained two million on Romney. And the 3million more votes she got over Bernie Sanders? Was that Trump also? What about the 200k more votes she got over Obama? Was that Trump also? What about her Senate runs? Did she also win that because of hatred for Trump? What about passing the bar? Did they only give her points because of hate for Trump? She lost to Donald grab them by the pussy Trump. She's the worst major nominee of all time for even having that election be close, let alone losing.
i'd say second worst at most, considering the opponent 
there's probably also a few other really bad nominees in the past for various reasons. it's a long history after all.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On January 13 2017 03:59 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 03:54 LegalLord wrote:
I don't see any viable replacement for the absurd slop of compromise that is Obamacare other than universal healthcare. Don't think we're there yet though. So you agree that repealing Obamacare is a terrible idea, despite it being an absurd slop of compromise? Because insofar as I have understood absolutely nobody, not even Obama, thinks Obamacare is a good solution. It's just something that could be put into place that was better than what came before and would work until an actual solution could be crafted. But repealing that stopgap plan without actually having put in the work to come up with a real solution seems shortsighted and prone to cast a large percentage of the population into incertitude, and probably uninsured status.
I see a repeal as a possible means to the end of a real universal healthcare system in a decade. Obamacare is arguably better than non-Obamacare (but certain aspects of it are highly unproductive) but it is a political basket case that is more trouble than it's worth.
I certainly hope Trump at least keeps the most unarguably important aspects of the law - coverage to 26, and no discrimination for previous conditions, etc.
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Meet aggression with aggression, not praise.
American soldiers rolled into Poland on Thursday, fulfilling a dream some Poles have had since the fall of communism in 1989 to have U.S. troops on their soil as a deterrent against Russia.
Some people waved and held up American flags as U.S. troops in tanks and other vehicles crossed into southwestern Poland from Germany and headed toward the town of Zagan, where they will be based. Poland's prime minister and defense minister will welcome them in an official ceremony Saturday.
"This is the fulfilment of a dream," said Michal Baranowski, director of the German Marshall Fund think tank in Warsaw. "And this is not just a symbolic presence but one with a real capability."
U.S. and other Western nations have carried out exercises on NATO's eastern flank in past years, but the new deployment — which includes some 3,500 U.S. troops — marks the first-ever continuous deployment to the region by a NATO ally.
It is part of a larger commitment by President Barack Obama to protect a region that grew deeply nervous when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and then began backing separatist rebels in Ukraine's east.
ABC
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Did you even read the details? That article reeks of fake news. It basically boils down to "we journalists didn't get to see what's in the folders, so we're presuming that there's nothing in there."
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On January 13 2017 04:20 Doodsmack wrote:Meet aggression with aggression, not praise. Show nested quote +American soldiers rolled into Poland on Thursday, fulfilling a dream some Poles have had since the fall of communism in 1989 to have U.S. troops on their soil as a deterrent against Russia.
Some people waved and held up American flags as U.S. troops in tanks and other vehicles crossed into southwestern Poland from Germany and headed toward the town of Zagan, where they will be based. Poland's prime minister and defense minister will welcome them in an official ceremony Saturday.
"This is the fulfilment of a dream," said Michal Baranowski, director of the German Marshall Fund think tank in Warsaw. "And this is not just a symbolic presence but one with a real capability."
U.S. and other Western nations have carried out exercises on NATO's eastern flank in past years, but the new deployment — which includes some 3,500 U.S. troops — marks the first-ever continuous deployment to the region by a NATO ally.
It is part of a larger commitment by President Barack Obama to protect a region that grew deeply nervous when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and then began backing separatist rebels in Ukraine's east. ABC
I look forward to more military escalation in the weeks and months to come. Let's make this a larger scale stand-off.
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On January 13 2017 04:20 xDaunt wrote:Did you even read the details? That article reeks of fake news. It basically boils down to "we journalists didn't get to see what's in the folders, so we're presuming that there's nothing in there."
really, you're going to outright lie about what the raticle said?
i did read the article, and that's not what it said.
it said the pages that were lose that we could see were entirely empty, without even page numbers, and that the folders were unlabelled.
it of course could still be a trash article, but you're outright lying about wha tthe article said.
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On January 13 2017 04:19 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 03:59 Acrofales wrote:On January 13 2017 03:54 LegalLord wrote:
I don't see any viable replacement for the absurd slop of compromise that is Obamacare other than universal healthcare. Don't think we're there yet though. So you agree that repealing Obamacare is a terrible idea, despite it being an absurd slop of compromise? Because insofar as I have understood absolutely nobody, not even Obama, thinks Obamacare is a good solution. It's just something that could be put into place that was better than what came before and would work until an actual solution could be crafted. But repealing that stopgap plan without actually having put in the work to come up with a real solution seems shortsighted and prone to cast a large percentage of the population into incertitude, and probably uninsured status. I see a repeal as a possible means to the end of a real universal healthcare system in a decade. Obamacare is arguably better than non-Obamacare (but certain aspects of it are highly unproductive) but it is a political basket case that is more trouble than it's worth. I certainly hope Trump at least keeps the most unarguably important aspects of the law - coverage to 26, and no discrimination for previous conditions, etc.
how can you keep the no discrimination for previous conditions? that's essentially impossible to keep without keeping the mandate.
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On January 13 2017 04:16 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 03:59 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 03:50 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:29 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 03:20 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:09 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 13 2017 02:54 LegalLord wrote:
Yes, those utterly despicable populists abandoned all reason to victimize poor, poor Hillary Clinton, a delectably electable candidate who should have never lost because she had the only policy that made sense - the people were just too liberal or deplorable to see her truly brilliant vision. I was not arguing for poor-poor Hillary, just restating the events that transpired. She got 3 million more votes than her opponent, so it's clear what the choice was for the American people. Where she lost was in strategic voting, unable to get word-of-mouth traction because social media was inundated by memes instead of discourse--an axis she was weak on. As such, costs to get door-knockers and precinct walkers was much higher for her than normal elections, forcing her team to be more deliberate in their GOTV strat. She lost according to the rules of the game as it was played. Trump won the votes where he needed to win them, and he had a pretty solid electoral victory, so I don't see the win as illegitimate in that sense. Memes weren't what won the election though - it was a deeply rooted dissatisfaction with Hillary and everything she represents, and in the swing states that dissatisfaction just happened to be sufficient to get people to suck it up and vote for a candidate they didn't really like who claimed to virulently stand against those things. I have not argued for the win being legitimate or illegitimate, I am arguing that despite Hillary having more votes, she was unable to take advantage of doing well on non-social media mediums (debates, policy, media, polls, etc...) but word of mouth popularity usually determines your GOTV costs (volunteers vs paid staff) which meant that "safe states" like Michigan and Pennsylvania were underfunded due to poll predictions telling the Hillary team to shift expenditures to other states. You don't have a 3 million popular vote lead because people are dissatisfied with you. You don't get the 2nd most votes in American history because people are dissatisfied with you. You lose despite the popular vote when you mismanage the street presence of your campaign in the last month. She has a 3 million popular vote lead because a lot of people hate her opponent. She has fewer votes than Obama whereas Trump gained two million on Romney. And the 3million more votes she got over Bernie Sanders? Was that Trump also? What about the 200k more votes she got over Obama? Was that Trump also? What about her Senate runs? Did she also win that because of hatred for Trump? What about passing the bar? Did they only give her points because of hate for Trump? Sanders isn't a competitive candidate. She turned what should be a 5% walk-over into a 40% almost-threat, even after DNC collusion. Though he was my favorite choice of the four "viable" candidates it does not escape my attention that his policies as put forth are not viable and he is clueless on FP. 2016 Election Clinton 65,844,954 wiki2012 Election Obama 65,915,795 wikiOr did you mean in the primaries, where that's only true if you count that Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan? And sure, that's some solid votes - but she was also fighting a charismatic nobody in that race while being herself very well known. Sure, she won handily in her home state, the Democratic stronghold of New York - in a noncompetitive primary and a safe general. You will find a historical trend that she doesn't win competitive races - and if she retires now, she never will. Indeed, she turns easy walk-overs into competitive races in order to be able to say that she won a competitive race - or in the case of Obama or Trump, lost them.
She won the popular vote in the last 3 elections she ran in. In her most recent run, only one person has ever gotten more votes than her--Obama.
That is consistency stretching just the last 8 years--more if you include her senate runs.
She lost to Delegate Counts vs Obama, and she lost to Electoral Counts vs Trump. But if we count raw votes--she's always won.
I understand you want a narrative that fits your opinion of her, but that's not what the popular votes show. What it shows is that she does not know how to build a team that gives her the best strategic chance at winning.
Obama had a massive delegate lead against her despite her small popular vote lead, which is why she stayed until the convention--being that its an actual decision of "should delegates vote based on states or should delegates vote based on votes." This was different from when Bernie tried to argue that neither the popular vote nor the state votes should matter, and that delegates should vote for him because he's Bernie "motherfucking" Sanders.
With Trump her team got misled by polls and constrained from lack of word-of-mouth/social media popularity. Budgets got tighter than it should have been for GOTV and polls misdirected their spending. Not only that, but the team then decided to go all-in on Texas and Florida; huge wins if the gamble had paid of, and would have 180'd the national dialogue for many elections to come. But they made the wrong play and lost 100k or less in some key states, some of them perceived safe states that they refused to send funding to (Michigan) despite requests from the local unions for more help.
Hillary never had problems getting most people to vote for her, her problem has always been getting the correct voters to vote for her.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On January 13 2017 04:30 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 04:19 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:59 Acrofales wrote:On January 13 2017 03:54 LegalLord wrote:
I don't see any viable replacement for the absurd slop of compromise that is Obamacare other than universal healthcare. Don't think we're there yet though. So you agree that repealing Obamacare is a terrible idea, despite it being an absurd slop of compromise? Because insofar as I have understood absolutely nobody, not even Obama, thinks Obamacare is a good solution. It's just something that could be put into place that was better than what came before and would work until an actual solution could be crafted. But repealing that stopgap plan without actually having put in the work to come up with a real solution seems shortsighted and prone to cast a large percentage of the population into incertitude, and probably uninsured status. I see a repeal as a possible means to the end of a real universal healthcare system in a decade. Obamacare is arguably better than non-Obamacare (but certain aspects of it are highly unproductive) but it is a political basket case that is more trouble than it's worth. I certainly hope Trump at least keeps the most unarguably important aspects of the law - coverage to 26, and no discrimination for previous conditions, etc. how can you keep the no discrimination for previous conditions? that's essentially impossible to keep without keeping the mandate.
I'll let the legislature figure that out.
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On January 13 2017 04:28 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 04:20 xDaunt wrote:Did you even read the details? That article reeks of fake news. It basically boils down to "we journalists didn't get to see what's in the folders, so we're presuming that there's nothing in there." really, you're going to outright lie about what the raticle said? i did read the article, and that's not what it said. it said the pages that were lose that we could see were entirely empty, without even page numbers, and that the folders were unlabelled. it of course could still be a trash article, but you're outright lying about wha tthe article said.
You need a refresher course in reading comprehension:
And the pages themselves appear to be blank. While the majority of the sheets were hidden, some of them were visible – and there was no sign of page numbers or the sticky notes that lawyers tend to use to mark places in large documents.
The paper itself also appeared to be the wrong size, printed on A4 rather than legal size sheets, and appears to have fallen like fresh sheets of paper. And the folders themselves were also entirely blank, despite Mr Trump suggesting that each of them related to a different business that Mr Trump was moving himself away from.
It is possible that the documents had been printed precisely for the press conference, but the fact that reporters weren't allowed to check the details of the documents led to concern that they didn't include any information at all.
Here's the evidence presented in support of the presumption that the pages are blank:
1) No sticky notes
2) No page numbers on any part of the sheets of paper that were visible (pay close attention to how they word this one)
3) A4 paper rather than legal paper (I find this one particularly funny)
4) Folders are unmarked.
5) Reporters couldn't look inside the folders
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On January 13 2017 04:31 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2017 04:30 zlefin wrote:On January 13 2017 04:19 LegalLord wrote:On January 13 2017 03:59 Acrofales wrote:On January 13 2017 03:54 LegalLord wrote:
I don't see any viable replacement for the absurd slop of compromise that is Obamacare other than universal healthcare. Don't think we're there yet though. So you agree that repealing Obamacare is a terrible idea, despite it being an absurd slop of compromise? Because insofar as I have understood absolutely nobody, not even Obama, thinks Obamacare is a good solution. It's just something that could be put into place that was better than what came before and would work until an actual solution could be crafted. But repealing that stopgap plan without actually having put in the work to come up with a real solution seems shortsighted and prone to cast a large percentage of the population into incertitude, and probably uninsured status. I see a repeal as a possible means to the end of a real universal healthcare system in a decade. Obamacare is arguably better than non-Obamacare (but certain aspects of it are highly unproductive) but it is a political basket case that is more trouble than it's worth. I certainly hope Trump at least keeps the most unarguably important aspects of the law - coverage to 26, and no discrimination for previous conditions, etc. how can you keep the no discrimination for previous conditions? that's essentially impossible to keep without keeping the mandate. I'll let the legislature figure that out.
their track record of figuring things out isn't good.
also it's pretty close to categorically impossible iirc.
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