2020 US Presidential Election

[GlennS]

80% of dead nazis came from the eastern front anyways so I can't see the part when they can claim 100% responsibility that the US "saved Europe"

They certainly "saved" Europe from becoming one big eastern block in the end to launch D-Day and meet the Russians half-way in Berlin.

 

[TeeOh]

Fair play... I am cool with that.

Some family had good jobs over in them parts. A scientist who grew crystals for lasers and my mentor who was well received as a great artist because of his tribute to the siege of Leningrad. Folks my age felt it to suffocating. All in all, as ethnics, we were happy to go. That region can be pretty brutal if your considered undesirable, like the US for some folks.

Anyhoodle my friend. I am 12 hours ahead and chilling with my son taking in what news I can get. He keeps punching me, I have a feeling he doesn't like lefty types.

I see it says you're currently in South East Asia. Not sure if it's the same person, but aren't you the teacher working in Laos? Long time since I read that post, and I might be mistaking you for someone else.

Bringing it up because I used to live nearby in Bangkok, Thailand in a small proportion of my childhood and used to take trips to the other SE Asian countries nearby including Laos. Some lovely places and I really miss the food, plus the occasional trips to Japan. My parents moved all over in my childhood so I got to experience a bit of Asia. I might be visiting Thailand again once things go back to normal and might even see Laos and the other countries nearby to see how much has changed since my early childhood.

 

[Zugzug]

70 million Americans believe what I do. So I guess half of America is dumb and deplorable. Democrats are just so much more intelligent.

I think you are misunderstanding my positions. Of course, both parties are loaded with moronic voters. Honestly, I could be a moronic voter.

Although the number is too big, it's not true that 70 million Americans believe what you do. Many Republicans have accepted that Biden won. Only the diehard cult members are still fighting at this point.

What is true is that 70 million Americans are open to a conservative style of governing. Also, many people support police officers and think that there was an overreaction to COVID-19. They held their nose and voted for someone they know is pretty insane.

Kindly, I think you should be aware that you are in the diehard Trump demographic. At this stage, the things you are pushing would put you in that range. A non diehard would understand that Trump did this to himself by being totally incompetent. A diehard believes that it's unthinkable that people could dislike him.

 

[Born To Slay]

The courts do not want to set a precedent by weighing in on an election. From my knowledge, that has never happened before. Two Supreme Court Justices did vote to hear a case though.

They did in Bush V Gore and that election was closer and more contentious then this one.

 

[TeeOh]

Thoughts on this recent news guys? For me personally, I have to say kudos to the British judge for refusing to extradite.



Surprised Mexico is offering political asylum, as Russia got a lot of heat giving Edward Snowden asylum.



"A British judge has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the United States to face espionage charges. The judge said extradition would be "oppressive" to his mental health. Supporters celebrated the verdict outside the courthouse in central London. Assange would have faced up to 175 years in prison if convicted of violating the US Espionage Act. In 2010, he released thousands of classified US military files online. The Australian was first arrested in Britain ten years ago, and sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years. His lawyers have consistently argued that Assange was acting as a journalist and is entitled to freedom of speech protections."

Now... where is this freedom I keep hearing about?

 

[TeeOh]

Also, many people support police officers and think that there was an overreaction to COVID-19

Related to the police and COVID-19, there was this. What kind of people point guns at children? The raid was caught on video and it's dystopian as hell:

'They Pointed Guns at My Kids': Outrage After Florida Cops Raid Home of Scientist Who Refused to Censor Covid-19 Data

 

[Juan]

Last time I checked, Trump was pushing for the $2000 stimulus. So this issue isn't even relevant to a Biden vs. Trump debate.

Yes, I know... I was answering Luman concerning the impending risks over world stability that he somehow sees coming from Europe.

However, the real risks stem from the absolute nonsense that dominates the global economic policy nowadays, that thing they call "stimulus" and that never ends...

 

[Born To Slay]

Yeah, screw the federal deficit. We can just print us some more money!

Oh spare me, the neocons and neolibs deficit spend on everything and Trump even before COVID-19 was running a trillion dollar deficit in a good economy and most Republicans didn't care. Now they do because Biden's coming in? We ain't buying that bridge.

 

[Christiaan]

Agree with everything you've said, Christiaan.

The Labour party does have an anti-Semitism problem that needed to be highlighted, but the Tory party also has a massive racism problem that barely gets any press attention at all, and there's a very obvious reason for that.

Corbyn was demonized by our largely right wing press because of his 'outlandish' socialist views. They couldn't allow a candidate like that to take power. Bernie has probably suffered from the same issue.

Again, agree.

It seems like even amongst the left in America it's considered quite derogatory to refer to someone as 'socialist'. Or maybe it's just that the term means something slightly different to how we would define it in Europe.

When are you going into politics????

Well... I was active in local politics until hardcore tinnitus came into my life. How about you? You seem well informed about what's going on, even about things in the US.

What I see is that mainstream media is slowly turning less hostile to Bernie Sanders and his ilk than a few years ago, but overall they still lack media representation. This would only amplify the idea that social democrats/socialists are ''radical'' or on the fringe vis-à-vis to what people consider moderate and practical. It's just sad that some people often forget that FDR basically ran on a social democratic platform, which got the US economy out of a deep recession. So socialism shouldn't be feared as a boogey man like some people try to make of it.

Funnily enough, I don't see this happening with ''tea party'' libertarians who are sometimes invited on outlets like CNN. People like Rick Sanctorum and Rand Paul often give their views without much pushback, although Van Jones might be the only one who dares to say something about it. So it seems like libertarianism, which most Europeans consider as radical/impractical, is considered as an acceptable ideology in American politics, whereas socialism is a ''pie in the sky'' kind of thing for some Americans.

 

[Born To Slay]

Yes, I know... I was answering Luman concerning the impending risks over world stability that he somehow sees coming from Europe.

However, the real risks stem from the absolute nonsense that dominates the global economic policy nowadays, that thing they call "stimulus" and that never ends...

We need to spend the money. If we let the economy collapse, we'll have to spend a lot more to build it back up. Also, we spent over 7 trillion to fight "terror" in the Middle East. We can spend 4-5 trillion to get America thru the pandemic.

 

[Christiaan]

I agree with this. I don't think he's a bad dude and I do think he really wants to help me more than almost every other politician, but his policies definitely have socialist flares to them. I supported Warren, who also supported policies with socialist flares.

For example:

"Sanders wants to provide workers with an ownership stake in their businesses: Under his proposal, employees at large companies would be given 20 percent of the shares. They would also have control of 45 percent of the seats on the board of directors at corporations."
​

Support it or not, this is a brand of socialism. Capitalism makes more of a distinction between the worker and the owner.

I think there's a fuzzy line between fair capitalism and socialism. Ultimately, the labels probably don't matter. I don't think we should eliminate any socialist idea on the face. As pointed out, we already have tons of things that fit the definition of socialism.

Universal Health Care is a good idea, but it has its drawbacks. I am navigating a really complex medical problem. I didn't receive treatment until I built up a rapport with a doctor. There's no way I would have received the same treatment if I was just another number. Sure, my premiums would be gone, but would it be worth it? I think it's fair to at least question this.

In theory, social democracy does try to bridge the divide between ownership and labour. However, in practice, what we often see in European countries is that not all companies are co-owned by labourers. They make up a large minority of the economy, roughly speaking.

So there is pretty much room for free entrepreneurship. Only thing is that that just like everyone else, they have to pay a fair share to make healthcare accessible + make investment in high end infrastructure and skilled labourers possible, which help retain large companies in lieu of off shoring & outsourcing or even brain draining.

Finland is just one example of a country that now has implemented favourable policies to improve the tech sector while offering the benefits of big government/welfare state (free healthcare, housing, daycare, school), which has attracted new tech companies and skilled labour from countries like the US.

Links:​

• Thousands apply to relocate to Finland as country seeks to lure foreign tech workers
• Finland offers tech workers free relocation packages to Helsinki

 

[TeeOh]

I think it's the FED and the US Government who do not remember history, as they are applying the same failed economic principles that made Japan lose 3 decades... and they call it now "stimulus", as if it were something new. In Japan politicians changed the name of this failed non-stop emission of money by central banks to "Abenomics". What a bluff...

Wait till those Americans with 50 mortgages cannot repay them... you will see what's going to happen with property prices...

Common sense is what the world needs.

The current problems with the economy of Japan was actually mainly due to the Plaza Accord which happened after the US had a trade war with Japan (that sounds awfully familiar lol, except Trump's trade deficit is skyrocketing now) which they gave up without much of a fight. It really didn't help solve much of Japan's current day society problems like suicide either:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord

Before the effects of the Plaza Accord really kicked in, Japan had around 1/3 the population of the US yet well over 50% the economic power (in GDP nominal, although it was different for GDP PPP). Japan's economy was a beast for its population size. There's a reason why 80s Blade Runner made Japan an economic and cultural superpower in the movie due to the many great technology coming out of the country at the time.

Right after this, Japan's economy completely plummeted to a closer size to Germany. It was also the world's most developed country before the lost decades:

In case you prefer to watch a video about it:



So much for the "free" market. When your products can't compete, then you just ban the opposition's higher quality products and have a trade war about it. I wouldn't mind a Nissan GTR though.

 

[Juan]

We need to spend the money. If we let the economy collapse, we'll have to spend a lot more to build it back up. Also, we spent over 7 trillion to fight "terror" in the Middle East. We can spend 4-5 trillion to get America thru the pandemic.

What I mean is this policy has not been implemented to "get America thu the pandemic". This policy was approved and started being implemented after Lehman Brothers collapse, so we are looking at an economic phenomenon that has been unrolling for the past 10 years and there seems to be no exit...

 

[Juan]

The current problems with the economy of Japan was actually mainly due to the Plaza Accord which happened after the US had a trade war with Japan (that sounds awfully familiar lol, except Trump's trade deficit is skyrocketing now) which they gave up without much of a fight. It really didn't help solve much of Japan's current day society problems like suicide either:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord

Before the effects of the Plaza Accord really kicked in, Japan had around 1/3 the population of the US yet well over 50% the economic power (in GDP nominal, although it was different for GDP PPP). Japan's economy was a beast for its population size. There's a reason why 80s Blade Runner made Japan an economic and cultural superpower in the movie due to the many great technology coming out of the country at the time.

Right after this, Japan's economy completely plummeted to a closer size to Germany. It was also the world's most developed country before the lost decades:

View attachment 42588

In case you prefer to watch a video about it:

So much for the "free" market. When your products can't compete, then you just ban the opposition's higher quality products and have a trade war about it. I wouldn't mind a Nissan GTR though.

Actually Japan's suicide rate must be a consequence of the wrong economic policies that started in Japan and have now extended to the whole world, including the EU and the US.

 

[Lane]

They got too stingy when they didn't approve the $2000 stimulus payment.

As much as I dislike Mitch McConnell, I actually have to agree with him on his disdain for the $2K stimulus payments. He essentially says that aid should be more targeted to those who need it, and not be given to the vast majority of people whose economic lives are not being impacted by the pandemic.

I can't even put this on Trump; the Party is faltering and failing to adapt to a changing demographic of voters.

So far their efforts at "adapting" have been focused on voter suppression. It's worked in the past, and continues to work in the present. But demographics will eventually win out, and they will be worse off for their ill-advised decision(s) to go down the dead-end voter suppression route.

Honestly, I could be a moronic voter.

Voter, know thyself!

 

[Born To Slay]

As much as I dislike Mitch McConnell, I actually have to agree with him on his disdain for the $2K stimulus payments. He essentially says that aid should be more targeted to those who need it, and not be given to the vast majority of people whose economic lives are not being impacted by the pandemic.

So far their efforts at "adapting" have been focused on voter suppression. It's worked in the past, and continues to work in the present. But demographics will eventually win out, and they will be worse off for their ill-advised decision(s) to go down the dead-end voter suppression route.

Voter, know thyself!

It is kinda funny that I do ultimately agree with Mitch McConnell on that front. That's 300 billion that really could be spent on more effective, targeted relief but unfortunately, I don't think the Democrats could've won Georgia without that promise and now they kinda have to fulfill it.

 

[TeeOh]

Actually Japan's suicide rate must be a consequence of the wrong economic policies that started in Japan and have now extended to the whole world, including the EU and the US.

What I was saying that the Plaza Accord didn't really help calm down the suicide problem as it took a hit in some people's economic conditions. I will agree Japan's hyper-capitalism right now is kinda nuts and some of Japans problems are starting to become more common everywhere else, because rising suicide isn't unique to Japan.

When you visit Tokyo, specifically Shibuya and Shinjuku, then it can feel like a cyberpunk movie in real life with the alienation (huge theme in cyberpunk literature) and over stimulation of bright non-stop advertisements. This scene perfectly illustrates the "alienation" feelings I get every time I visited and people in the comments say the same thing. At the same time the thought of being in a state of alienation in a very far away foreign culture was really relaxing:



Even though the country has some problems, it still has very good qualities like how extremely clean and safe Tokyo is (it's the biggest city in the world, yet is also the safest). Still my favourite city, even though it might not be a perfect place to live. Below are some videos of Tokyo looking like Blade Runner in real life.

 

[aot]

Of course this thread starts talking about Blade Runner after I get rid of my Blade Runner PFP.

 

[Christiaan]

You know why that is? Right now there's no such thing as the "free press" when only a small group of people has control of it, and that group has similar interests that contradict everyone else's interests here which means they're willing to screw you over if it serves their interest. Technically they have control over speech too with stuff like social media websites:

Things like this disproves there's democracy in most societies:

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy

Related to the Media, but watch this as it's quite a known interview. What I said also includes pumping out propaganda for the purpose of destroying nations that show any signs of resistance. At one point this CIA agent says "We didn't know a single atrocity committed by the [Not going to spoil it. Just watch the full thing]":

There's a huge list of examples of invented realities, but it has happened before when they made up stories about WMD's in Iraq more recently and this which is a proven made up story that involves babies in incubators:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

Basically don't believe everything you hear from the media, especially if it's about a country that is a "enemy".

Yikes! Up until five years ago, I was quite skeptical of Chomsky's manufactured consent. But seeing all this makes one wonder how much is coordinated between the rich and powerful in trying to manipulate people in what they should think about certain issues. It's scary just to think about it.

It may not be the main antidote against garbling up info without thinking whether it's true or not, and maybe you do not agree on this point, but I really do think that philosophy should be mandatory as a subject in every middle/high school. It should be considered as an essential subject; on the same level as maths and English. It may not make us infallible people in discerning what is true or not, but it helps us in developing critical thinking. This is so fundamental in trying to find the truth in what matters to us, what makes theories and assumptions more probable than others and that we not unconditionally accept the things that some people say just because we like their personality for instance. This is probably just wishful thinking on my part.

 

[Christiaan]

Do you personally know some Russians or been to Russia before? One of the things that surprised me the most is that every single Russian elder I have spoken to said that life under socialism was better than current day Russia. I used to work with some Serbians that spoke highly of the socialist days and if I recall correctly, I remember seeing some statistics saying over 80% of Serbians said life was better in the old days under socialism.

I know some people will say it's just old people with nostalgia, but the Russian elders aren't always wrong either because I have researched about this where technically Russians today eat less food than they did under socialism. That and the fact they lived in the best and worst times of the country to make a fair judgement. Even the CIA said Soviet citizens ate the same amount of food as American citizens except apparently Soviet diet was more nutritious. CIA have their bias and motivation to lie as they have done before multiple times, yet here's their report not showing their rivals as a starving country and you can even find the PDF on their website:

View attachment 42575

Russians consume 700 calories a day fewer now than at the end of Soviet times

I can't find the original video of this, but I found this re-upload which hopefully helps explain what I was on about:

This nostalgia for an idealised communist past is something that really intrigues me. Did you do research on communism in Eastern Europe/Russia? Sounds like you really went all in on this one

A similar story that I have read about during German class is ''Ostalgie' (ost= east + nostalgia). It's actually about nostalgia that East Germans have for their communist past. It basically means that older generations longed to the warm and close knitted community that they once had and a government that took care of them. This all slowly disintegrated when East Germany became part of Germany again. Despite their material improvement in comparison to their communist past, the older generations still miss the old days. So this story is a bit different to the one that you have heard about life in former communist countries. BTW There is even a movie about this subject that might interest you: Good Bye Lenin! It is a pretty good movie.

 

[Pulsing Ear]

I think you are misunderstanding my positions. Of course, both parties are loaded with moronic voters. Honestly, I could be a moronic voter.

Although the number is too big, it's not true that 70 million Americans believe what you do. Many Republicans have accepted that Biden won. Only the diehard cult members are still fighting at this point.

What is true is that 70 million Americans are open to a conservative style of governing. Also, many people support police officers and think that there was an overreaction to COVID-19. They held their nose and voted for someone they know is pretty insane.

Kindly, I think you should be aware that you are in the diehard Trump demographic. At this stage, the things you are pushing would put you in that range. A non diehard would understand that Trump did this to himself by being totally incompetent. A diehard believes that it's unthinkable that people could dislike him.

I'm just going by a poll that was run. I can't remember who did it, but it might have been Pew. Results showed about 45% of voters in the US believed there was some significant fraud. I think that wasn't meant to indicate that they necessarily thought it flipped the election, but that there was a significant amount. I think they polled for if they believed the election was flipped but I don't recall the results on that. I think there was about 5% of Democrats included in that 45%.

I never said I think Trump can do no wrong. Again there you are stereotyping his supporters. There might be some like that, i don't know any. I think I know more Trump supporters than you. There are things about his personality I don't like, but the man got great results and did great things for the country. I pray that Biden and the Democratic Party don't squander all that he did. It is disheartening to hear of all the executive actions Biden is going to take early on. Executive actions have become more common these days with all US Presidents I think. I didn't like when Trump did some of them.

One thing that is really bad is how the Democratic Party seems to support packing the SCOTUS with more members.

Thomas Jipping: Court-packing poses real threat

 

[Pulsing Ear]

They did in Bush V Gore and that election was closer and more contentious then this one.

That was a different kind of battle. I don't believe either side alleged fraud. Maybe I'm wrong. I thought it all came down to "hanging chads".

Oh spare me, the neocons and neolibs deficit spend on everything and Trump even before COVID-19 was running a trillion dollar deficit in a good economy and most Republicans didn't care. Now they do because Biden's coming in? We ain't buying that bridge.

I never said Trump didn't spend too much, did I? He didn't spend as much as Obama though, not including the response to the worst pandemic in 100 years. He has a lot to show for it too. Overall I'd rather have Rand Paul in control of spending.

I agree that both sides spend too much.

 

[Zugzug]

It may not be the main antidote against garbling up info without thinking whether it's true or not, and maybe you do not agree on this point, but I really do think that philosophy should be mandatory as a subject in every middle/high school. It should be considered as an essential subject; on the same level as maths and English. It may not make us infallible people in discerning what is true or not, but it helps us in developing critical thinking. This is so fundamental in trying to find the truth in what matters to us, what makes theories and assumptions more probable than others and that we not unconditionally accept the things that some people say just because we like their personality for instance. This is probably just wishful thinking on my part.

I don't disagree with you about the positive role of philosophy. However, I disagree with you that the core problem (in American politics, anyways) is an inability to do enough critical thinking. The real problem is deliberately seeing things the way we want to see them. Though I think a lot of Trump supporters act stupid, I think tons of them are reasonably intelligent -- some are actually brilliant. For example, the Trump supporters in this thread don't come off as particularly dumb, just emotionally invested.

In my opinion, the American people need education on emotional reactions and why, for example, we get more upset when our co-worker makes slightly more money than us, while our company's CEO makes 1000x what we make. We get mad at the co-worker and not the system that enriched the CEO more than they deserve.

As for falling for fake news on the internet, this is driven by emotion. Notice that everyone has a clear head and can debunk face news when it works against them, but we eat it up when it benefits us.

There are all sorts of complicated emotions built into our political beliefs. For example, it feels wrong to question the political beliefs we were taught. The #1 thing we need to do is stop viewing our fellow Americans as enemies. I hope that getting rid of Trump is a start in this direction. It shouldn't be this big dramatic thing to change parties. I'm currently a Democrat, but if the Republican party reforms a lot, I could switch. It's not a big deal. We need to get there.

 

[Christiaan]

Life in Venezuela was already terrible in the 80s and 90s (riots were daily and Venezuela's society showed signs of collapsing). So it's not as simple as people make it out to be, as you have to analyse the situation and history. There's actually some data showing that life got better when that left wing party came into power which you can research about. It got worse when there was sanctions imposed on their biggest money maker (oil) which really crippled their economy because it was their main money maker. They even have to deal with pirate-like actions:

US sells oil seized from Iran to Venezuela for $40 million

I would avoid using USNews for data as their aren't very accurate in a lot of ways. It puts Canada as 1st, but I have some relatives who left Canada for Australia who said the life quality is way better over there as they have double the amount of paid holiday off work (spooky socialist policy that Bernie Sanders advocates for) with still higher salaries. The inequality human development index is better and more objective even though it does have its flaws, but its better at determining quality of life:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_HDI

Norway: 1st
Australia: 11th
Canada: 17th
USA: 28th

I have mentioned it before but the way Norway organises its economy has some similarities to some previous and current socialist states. They use the methods of state capitalism which was a term invented by socialists. It's something to do with it being used to develop full socialism because apparently state capitalism is one step towards it like how the Soviet Union had a more free market economy at the beginning with that NEP policy.

Even the State Capitalism Wikipedia page uses Norway as an example being used in the 21st century along with an already existing communist country today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism

Thanks for pointing out to your source on IHDI. This one is way more accurate in terms of conceptualisation and operationalisation on living standards.

I think that the embargo's are not the main reason they have a failed state. Chavez did run a relatively successful government during the first part of his reign, but the last few years before his dead, it all went downhill by corruption, nepotism, human rights abuse and almost an unhealthy blind faith in a planned economy. His successor, Nicolas Maduro, continued on this path and even went further as a quasi-dictator by ignoring the democratic legitimacy of the parliament, which has voted in majority for another candidate-president in 2018: Juan Guaido.

Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_presidential_crisis

Norway is a good example of state capitalism, just like you said. Their economy is not entirely planned from top-down bureaucracy like we have seen of communist states in the past, but they have made the right decisions in setting up an oil fund to finance and improve their public services & facilities (oil fund = investment in stocks and shares by using surplus revenue of their petroleum sector). This has made Norway one of the best countries in terms of healthcare, education and infrastructure

 

[Zugzug]

I'm just going by a poll that was run. I can't remember who did it, but it might have been Pew. Results showed about 45% of voters in the US believed there was some significant fraud. I think that wasn't meant to indicate that they necessarily thought it flipped the election, but that there was a significant amount. I think they polled for if they believed the election was flipped but I don't recall the results on that. I think there was about 5% of Democrats included in that 45%.

I never said I think Trump can do no wrong. Again there you are stereotyping his supporters. There might be some like that, i don't know any. I think I know more Trump supporters than you. There are things about his personality I don't like, but the man got great results and did great things for the country. I pray that Biden and the Democratic Party don't squander all that he did. It is disheartening to hear of all the executive actions Biden is going to take early on. Executive actions have become more common these days with all US Presidents I think. I didn't like when Trump did some of them.

One thing that is really bad is how the Democratic Party seems to support packing the SCOTUS with more members.

Thomas Jipping: Court-packing poses real threat

We will have to agree to disagree on everything except that hearing conditions suck. After what McConnell did to Merrick Garland (someone who is very bi-partisan) when Obama had almost a year left on his term, it's totally out of line to me to pin the SCOTUS mess on Democrats.

To make my position clear, I have less of a problem with Trump rushing ACB through than I do Obama being denied his pick. Both should have occurred.

 

[Pulsing Ear]

We will have to agree to disagree on everything except that hearing conditions suck. After what McConnell did to Merrick Garland (someone who is very bi-partisan) when Obama had almost a year left on his term, it's totally out of line to me to pin the SCOTUS mess on Democrats.

To make my position clear, I have less of a problem with Trump rushing ACB through than I do Obama being denied his pick. Both should have occurred.

I agree. McConnell should have let the senate vote to confirm Garland. Garland would not earn enough votes and would have been rejected anyhow. The Democrats did not have enough votes. Totally different situation than we just had with RBG because the Republicans had the majority.

I guess McConnell felt like the optics of turning down a nominee would look bad?

The days of non partisan support are long long gone.

 

[Pulsing Ear]

We will have to agree to disagree on everything except that hearing conditions suck. After what McConnell did to Merrick Garland (someone who is very bi-partisan) when Obama had almost a year left on his term, it's totally out of line to me to pin the SCOTUS mess on Democrats.

To make my position clear, I have less of a problem with Trump rushing ACB through than I do Obama being denied his pick. Both should have occurred.

So you support increasing the number of members in the SCOTUS?

These days it seems as if the Supreme Court has taken up legislation duties too.

 

[Born To Slay]

That was a different kind of battle. I don't believe either side alleged fraud. Maybe I'm wrong. I thought it all came down to "hanging chads".

I never said Trump didn't spend too much, did I? He didn't spend as much as Obama though, not including the response to the worst pandemic in 100 years. He has a lot to show for it too. Overall I'd rather have Rand Paul in control of spending.

I agree that both sides spend too much.

The Supreme Court still decided the election, whether it was fraud or just needing more time to get the votes in order, the Supreme Court stepped in and decided the election. If the court, which wasn't as conservative as this one, can do that, there wouldn't be any new precedent set here if the court overturned the election result.

And no, he didn't spend as much as Obama but Obama was in 8 years and his first few years were during a recession. If you don't include the COVID-19 stuff toward Trump' spending then you can include Obama's stimulus measures in his score either. Trump had a trillion dollar deficit in a good economy. That'd be unheard of. At least under Obama, when the economy got better the deficit went down. It was the opposite under Trump.

 

[Luman]

Thoughts on this recent news guys? For me personally, I have to say kudos to the British judge for refusing to extradite.

Surprised Mexico is offering political asylum, as Russia got a lot of heat giving Edward Snowden asylum.

"A British judge has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the United States to face espionage charges. The judge said extradition would be "oppressive" to his mental health. Supporters celebrated the verdict outside the courthouse in central London. Assange would have faced up to 175 years in prison if convicted of violating the US Espionage Act. In 2010, he released thousands of classified US military files online. The Australian was first arrested in Britain ten years ago, and sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years. His lawyers have consistently argued that Assange was acting as a journalist and is entitled to freedom of speech protections."

Now... where is this freedom I keep hearing about?

They should just drop all charges against him, and turn him loose. I don't think he'd last a week, before being kidnapped or assassinated.

 

[Lane]

The #1 thing we need to do is stop viewing our fellow Americans as enemies.

I think it should be noted that this dynamic was primarily fostered by the Republicans, with Newt Gingrich essentially basing his entire political strategy on. He regularly tutored his fellow Republicans on how to use of various words and phrases to demonize their political opponents, as apposed to disagreeing with them on policy. Trump built on New Gingrich's earlier work and took it to a whole new level. -- As a reflection of the changing times, a young black woman now holds Newt Gingrich's former seat.

Lucy McBath Wins Georgia Rematch, Holding House Seat for Democrats