Election 2020

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Crackpot
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Crackpot »

I think Yang would do good against Trump. (I don’t think his policies are necessarily good for the country) but I think he could beat Trump easily.

Williamson might convince me to vote Trump.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Lord Jim
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Lord Jim »

I was very sorry to see Montana Gov. Steve Bullock having to drop out without ever really getting a hearing. Silly Steve, he thought it was more important for him to do the job he was elected to then go out on the Presidential campaign trail, so he got a late start that he was never able to recover from.

As the three time winner of state-wide elections in a deeply red state, (each time with a Republican Presidential nominee on the ballot carrying the state handily, including Trump in 2016) who has also managed to get major legislation passed working with a GOP state legislature, he was the kind of candidate who could definitely have been a very strong contender against Trump....
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BoSoxGal
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Re: Election 2020

Post by BoSoxGal »

I’m more disappointed that he’s not running against Daines for the Senate; if he was really concerned for the future of our country you’d think he would.

To be honest, this whole late entry low energy presidential bid has diminished my opinion of Bullock. Next thing he’ll take a lobbying job or some other cash in.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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RayThom
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Erection 2020

Post by RayThom »

Crackpot wrote:I think Yang would do good against Trump. (I don’t think his policies are necessarily good for the country) but I think he could beat Trump easily...
That might not happen. I read today that the Big Grifter has newly created documentation that proves Yang was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Oddly, it also indicates his parents were born in Kenya.
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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

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Econoline
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Econoline »

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People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
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Econoline
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Econoline »

People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
God @The Tweet of God

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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: Election 2020

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

“Millions of us seeing Dorian turn away from land is not a wacky idea,” she wrote in a tweet that she later deleted. “Two minutes of prayer, visualization, meditation for those in the way of the storm.”
An FB (and actual) friend of mine shared a meme/message just yesterday - we are all supposed to spend 30 seconds (an advance over wasting two minutes) in prayer during which we all "imagine" or "visualize" rain drenching all the fires in Australia. Guaranteed to work.

I'm worried when people don't even understand their own religion

Sometimes I worry when they do
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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RayThom
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Election 2020

Post by RayThom »

'Politics of love': the end of Marianne Williamson's bizarre and mesmerizing campaign

Damn! Just when the conversations with my inner self were beginning to center my chi.

Maybe she'll have a second coming and rematerialize in 2024. That will be so comforting to my spirit.

Om, om, heaven, om...
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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

Darren
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Darren »

Thanks for the laughs folks. Trump has been out campaigning and the Democrats are still auditioning for top clown at the circus.
Thank you RBG wherever you are!

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Scooter
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Scooter »

A Trumpanzee crowing about clowns and circuses, given the antics of this president and this White House. My fortune for an irony meter that won't explode...
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

Darren
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Darren »

Scooter wrote:A Trumpanzee crowing about clowns and circuses, given the antics of this president and this White House. My fortune for an irony meter that won't explode...
Why not? You've ruined VS meters.
Thank you RBG wherever you are!

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Scooter
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Scooter »

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"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

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Scooter
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Scooter »

Best line about the campaigns I have heard thus far:

Bernie is a lot like Jesus, both Jewish, both care deeply about the poor, both have incredibly obnoxious followers.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

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Econoline
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Econoline »

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
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Econoline
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Econoline »

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People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
God @The Tweet of God

rubato
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Re: Election 2020

Post by rubato »

MajGenl.Meade wrote:"...

An FB (and actual) friend of mine shared a meme/message just yesterday - we are all supposed to spend 30 seconds (an advance over wasting two minutes) in prayer during which we all "imagine" or "visualize" rain drenching all the fires in Australia. Guaranteed to work.

I'm worried when people don't even understand their own religion

Sometimes I worry when they do
St. Peter: But wouldn't it show your mercy to have droughts, rain, then fires?

Allmighty: Hell no. Droughts, catastrophic fires, and then torrential rain and floods will have them cowering and begging like nothing else.

Heh heh heh

They really need me! The poor bastards. They took that whole rainbow thing entirely too seriously.

yrs,
rubato

liberty
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Re: Election 2020

Post by liberty »

If the Democrats really want to win the 2020 presidential election the thing to do is to give the little people out there in the middle of the country more hope than Trump and then live up to your promises. After all, why should a Mexican truck driver be able to compete with an American driver on US highways? If you need more truck drivers perhaps you should try paying US truckers more money.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.

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Econoline
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Econoline »

Paul Krugman answers the musical question. (TL;DR version: "not much.")
  • By Paul Krugman | Opinion Columnist | Jan. 31, 2020

    At this point, the Democratic presidential nomination is very much up in the air. Not only is it unclear who will be the nominee; it’s unclear whether the nominee will be a centrist like Joe Biden or Amy Klobuchar, or a representative of the party’s left like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Whoever wins, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the other side.

    So I’d like to offer an opinion that will probably anger everyone: In terms of actual policy, it probably doesn’t matter much who the Democrats nominate — as long as he or she wins, and Democrats take the Senate too.

    If you’re a centrist worried about the gigantic spending increases Sanders has proposed, calm down, because they won’t happen. If you’re a progressive worried that Biden might govern like a Republican, you should also calm down, because he wouldn’t.

    In practice, any Democrat would probably preside over a significant increase in taxes on the wealthy and a significant but not huge expansion of the social safety net. Given a Democratic victory, a much-enhanced version of Obamacare would almost certainly be enacted; Medicare for All, not so much. Given a Democratic victory, Social Security and Medicare would be protected and expanded; Paul Ryan-type cuts wouldn’t be on the table.

    In 2016 Trump ran as a different kind of Republican, promising that unlike other candidates, he wouldn’t slash social programs and cut taxes on the rich. But it was all a lie. Aside from his trade war, Trump’s economic policies have been straight right-wing orthodoxy: huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, attempts to take health care away from tens of millions of Americans. And lately he has been talking about possible cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

    The point is that even though Trump commands humiliating personal subservience from his party, he hasn’t caused any significant shift in its policy priorities.

    Now, the Democratic Party is very different from the G.O.P. — it’s a loose coalition of interest groups, not a monolithic entity answering to a handful of billionaires allied with white nationalists. But this if anything makes it even harder for a Democratic president to lead his or her party very far from its political center of gravity, which is currently one of moderate progressivism.

    It’s still far from clear who will come out on top in the primary, but it’s enough to think about what would happen if either of the two current front-runners, Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, were to become president — and also have strong enough coattails to produce a Democratic Senate, because otherwise nothing will happen.

    Sanders has a hugely ambitious agenda; Medicare for All is just part of it. Paying for that agenda would be difficult — no, Modern Monetary Theory wouldn’t actually do away with the fiscal constraint. So turning Sanders’s vision into reality would require large tax increases, not just on the wealthy, but on the middle class; without those tax increases it would be highly inflationary.

    But not to worry: it won’t happen. Even if he made it to the White House, Sanders would have to deal with a Congress (and a public) considerably less radical than he is, and would be obliged to settle for a more modest progressive agenda.

    It’s true that Sanders enthusiasts believe that they can rally a hidden majority of Americans around an aggressively populist agenda, and in so doing also push Congress into going along. But we had a test in the midterm elections: Progressives ran a number of candidates in Trump districts, and if even one of them had won they would have claimed vindication for their faith in transformative populism. But none did; the sweeping Democratic victory came entirely from moderates running conventional campaigns.

    The usual take on this progressive setback is that it raises questions about Sanders’s electability. But it also has a very different implication: Moderates worried about a radical presidency should cool it. A President Sanders wouldn’t be especially radical in practice.

    What about Joe Biden? The Sanders campaign has claimed that Biden endorsed Paul Ryan’s plans for sharp cuts in Social Security and Medicare; that claim is false. What is true is that in the past Biden has often been a Very Serious Person going along with the Beltway consensus that we need “adjustments” — a euphemism for at least modest cuts — in Social Security. (Actually, if you go back a ways, Sanders turns out to have said similar things.)

    But the Democratic Party as a whole has moved left on these issues, and Biden has moved with it. Even if he has a lingering desire to strike a Grand Bargain with Republicans — which I doubt — he would face such a huge intraparty backlash that he would be forced to back off.

    So in terms of policy, here’s what I think would happen if Sanders wins: we’ll get a significant but not gigantic expansion of the social safety net, paid for by significant new taxes on the rich.

    On the other hand, if Biden wins, we’ll get a significant but not gigantic expansion of the social safety net, paid for by significant new taxes on the rich.


    One implication, if I’m right, is that electability should play a very important role in your current preferences. It matters hugely whether a Democrat wins, it matters much less which Democrat wins.

    But my main point is that Democrats should unify, enthusiastically, behind whoever gets the nomination. Any moderate tempted to become a Never Bernie type should realize that even if you find Sanders too radical, his actual policies would be far more tempered. Any Sanders enthusiast tempted to become a Bernie or Bust type should realize that these days even centrist Dems are pretty progressive, and that there’s a huge gap between them and Trump’s G.O.P.

    Oh, and all the Democrats believe in democracy and rule of law, which is kind of important these days.
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
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Bicycle Bill
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Re: Election 2020

Post by Bicycle Bill »

if Trump is re-elected in 2020, we can always hope "The Curse of Tippecanoe" (or "Tecumseh's Curse") hasn't lost all of its power.
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BoSoxGal
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Re: Election 2020

Post by BoSoxGal »

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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