We don't tax people based on wealth for good reason. It's highly questionable whether it's possible to have a wealth tax which generates more tax dollars than it costs to run. That low bar ignores the level of damage done to the economy by having it.
Fundamentally you're claiming Bezos shouldn't be allowed to build Amazon. That there should be an upper limit to how successful someone is allowed to be and how much good they can create in the economy.
My poll doesn't match everyone else's, ergo there is a good chance that I'm wrong and everyone else is right. Of course that approach fails wildly if everyone is doing the same thing but hopefully at least a few are doing their job.
"Any" is a big word. However in his first election he used this language a lot more and dropped it (and told his followers to drop it) the moment he was elected. This time he seems even less serious.
If we're looking for "gov oppression between Team Red and Team Blue" then the big example is Blue repeatedly trying to arrest Trump.
There are strong arguments he deserves it, however to someone who lacks details it looks like Blue is more repressive than Red.
In addition, Blue's cult of DEI took over colleges (including having all Professors in all disciplines swear allegiance to it and talk about how they'll be furthering it).
We also have Blue Media claiming Joe was fit as a fiddle, presumably out of fear that pointing out the obvious would cause problems.
A commitment to actual free/liberal society would mean goring a number of Blue's sacred cows.
How many GOP candidates have been accused of these things? All of them?
What has happened is Team Blue's "purity police" where everyone in their way is Hit.ler has resulted in someone who is comfortable with false accusations.
Trump constantly spins up false accusations until nothing against him is believed.
So Blue claims Trump is an anti-Semite in the face of his daughter and grandchildren being Jews and his strong support for Israel.
For claims of his racism you're bringing out housing lawsuits from the 1970s(?).
Since Team Red and Team Undecided have heard these sorts of claims many, many times before, they're totally discounted and ignored.
You can't beat something with nothing. Harris is running on raw charisma, being a black woman, hope and change (in spite of being in charge), not being Trump, and word salad.
It's possible that not being Trump will be enough, I voted for her because of that. However she's so bad that in Blue's last serious primary she got zero votes.
The actual way to do this would have been for Biden to step down as being unfit and let her run as President. That would eliminate a lot of the contradictions in our current situation and give her a chance to look Presidential.
I guess I wouldn't be surprised either way. But that message by itself suggests the perp is high enough functioning that we're past "random nut" territory.
So looks like my first expectation (posted further up) was wrong.
With the exception of the guy who shot Lincoln, the various Presidential assassins have been "random lunatics" rather than serious players. The same holds true for most one-person political attacks.
If this one really did have "planning, experience, and metalwork" then maybe he is high enough functioning to not fit that pattern, but it is a pattern.
Random lunatics either attack people at random or because they're famous, i.e. in the news. We've had a lot of press and hysteria over this recently.
So it could be a Trump supporter because he's got them spun up, an anti-Trump person because he's got them spun up, or someone who basically has no politics because they're not functional enough but has joined the chaos because of the voices in their head.
Judging from history, the way to bet is that third group.
Speaking as someone who wants to make abortion legal in all situations, looking at the data in Chip's link, I think Duck is correct.
The number of people dying spiked wildly before the law was passed and dropped after it did. We're not back to normal, and we might not get to normal, but we need to wait another year or two before we can make that evaluation.
That was 3 years ago, so right after the laws changed. Is this sort of thing still a problem?
My less-than-one-minute of research suggested the laws haven't been changed, and the legislature didn't want this to be the result. I didn't find others but I didn't look very hard.
If it's not still a problem then the hospital was being unnecessarily legally cautious.
Without COVID, in 2020 Trump would have crushed any Team Blue opposition. The Trump economy would have been in full swing and he arguably did things to encourage growth.
For all of the unhelpful things he did with Covid, Operation Warp Speed got us a vaccination (actually 2.5 vaccinations) in less than a year which was supposed to be impossible.
After he left office, we went back to extremely slow approvals of vaccinations and didn't see a covid update for more than a year.
Trump had extremely strong arguments for deserving a 2nd term. Of course he pissed all of that away on Jan 6th (and so on). His various crimes-he-should-be-charged-over all happened after he lost the election.
CJColucci: Team Red would say the same thing if Harris were the second coming of Abraham Lincoln.
They would, but I would not be saying it.
Here is her CNN interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl9gPBasyv4&list=PLxzNezk7uSpPKgEOsA4SkI0gGU1wKHbZ9&index=17
Q1: What would you do on day one?
A1: My priority is the middle class. [then more word salad].
She gets asked that question again and says something about "her other proposals" and (finally) something about a tax credit (which means sending that idea to Congress).
So she's extremely vague in her answer and has vague intentions.
Q2: What do you say to voters who do want to go back to the Trump economy for housing and groceries?
A2: Says Trump was bad. Admits that prices are too high and need to come down. [something about price gouging, some more tax credits]
Q3: The stuff that you're talking about, why haven't you done them already?
A3: We have to recover as an economy. [Something about a specific drug's price]. A few other specific accomplishments.
Q4: Fracking
A: She insists that her values haven't changed (talks about values) even though her position has flipped.
Good answers:
A1: I will pass an executive order saying "X,Y,Z".
A2: Trump doesn't have the ability to bring back his economy and his tariffs are a tax on American taxpayers. I will encourage American farmers to make more food via X,Y,Z.
A3: I wasn't President then (although if she says this then she needs to be able to list things she'd do differently than Joe which she has failed to do in other questions).
A4: The actions and self destruction of Russia, Venezuela, and Iran have changed the market. I'd rather have natural gas than coal. Fracking has it's place in the overall energy mix although long term it's on the way out.
Chip: about 45% of the American electorate will knowingly, willingly, choose the racist dictator.
If you want racism to be a seriously evil crime that we take seriously, then you can't also claim that everyone is racist. You also can't use that claim in every election.
Ditto the dictator claims. After you dumb it down to mean "is in the way of Team Blue", it doesn't mean anything.
So yes, it's a mistake to use these accusations against everyone who gets in your way.
However they insisted the VP be a black female and that came at the expense of "most electable" and/or "most leadership experience".
Team Red is claiming that she's been hiding in the White House doing solitaire for the last 2+ years and every time she answers with word salad it reenforces that.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
Might be similar to what I'm seeing from Palestinian activists. Team Blue isn't making things better so might as well try the other side.
I guess I respect that thinking although I think the Palestinian activists' expectations and description of what is going on are somewhat faulty.
On “The Way Through is Donald Trump for President”
We don't tax people based on wealth for good reason. It's highly questionable whether it's possible to have a wealth tax which generates more tax dollars than it costs to run. That low bar ignores the level of damage done to the economy by having it.
Fundamentally you're claiming Bezos shouldn't be allowed to build Amazon. That there should be an upper limit to how successful someone is allowed to be and how much good they can create in the economy.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
My poll doesn't match everyone else's, ergo there is a good chance that I'm wrong and everyone else is right. Of course that approach fails wildly if everyone is doing the same thing but hopefully at least a few are doing their job.
"
"Any" is a big word. However in his first election he used this language a lot more and dropped it (and told his followers to drop it) the moment he was elected. This time he seems even less serious.
"
If we're looking for "gov oppression between Team Red and Team Blue" then the big example is Blue repeatedly trying to arrest Trump.
There are strong arguments he deserves it, however to someone who lacks details it looks like Blue is more repressive than Red.
In addition, Blue's cult of DEI took over colleges (including having all Professors in all disciplines swear allegiance to it and talk about how they'll be furthering it).
We also have Blue Media claiming Joe was fit as a fiddle, presumably out of fear that pointing out the obvious would cause problems.
A commitment to actual free/liberal society would mean goring a number of Blue's sacred cows.
"
So how is HRC doing in prison? He ran, for a long time, on "Lock her up". That was a lot more serious than this.
RE: Mass deportations
Pretty sure he'll try this.
"
I listened to his speech and I didn't think he was serious anymore than Obama was serious about bringing firearms to political fights.
This is an example of Blue's hysteria and not Trump's foulness.
On “The Way Through is Donald Trump for President”
I'm responding to Chip's narrative "everyone who votes for Trump is a racist".
And if the election really is a dead heat tie, then 1.425% will be one of the deciding factors.
If they voted for Harris in the same numbers that they voted for Obama, she could coast to victory.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
How many GOP candidates have been accused of these things? All of them?
What has happened is Team Blue's "purity police" where everyone in their way is Hit.ler has resulted in someone who is comfortable with false accusations.
Trump constantly spins up false accusations until nothing against him is believed.
So Blue claims Trump is an anti-Semite in the face of his daughter and grandchildren being Jews and his strong support for Israel.
For claims of his racism you're bringing out housing lawsuits from the 1970s(?).
Since Team Red and Team Undecided have heard these sorts of claims many, many times before, they're totally discounted and ignored.
You can't beat something with nothing. Harris is running on raw charisma, being a black woman, hope and change (in spite of being in charge), not being Trump, and word salad.
It's possible that not being Trump will be enough, I voted for her because of that. However she's so bad that in Blue's last serious primary she got zero votes.
The actual way to do this would have been for Biden to step down as being unfit and let her run as President. That would eliminate a lot of the contradictions in our current situation and give her a chance to look Presidential.
On “The Way Through is Donald Trump for President”
One in four black men under the age of 50 support Trump. "That makes them racists" is probably not a useful way to describe what's going on.
"
no one wants to talk about why it was tied in the first place.
The media's self interest is that it be tied and not a blow out. The various pollsters have shown that they don't really know what they're doing.
There is a good chance that one side or the other has more/less support than we think.
Beyond that, we have a pair of terrible candidates.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
I guess I wouldn't be surprised either way. But that message by itself suggests the perp is high enough functioning that we're past "random nut" territory.
So looks like my first expectation (posted further up) was wrong.
"
RE: What history are you judging from?
With the exception of the guy who shot Lincoln, the various Presidential assassins have been "random lunatics" rather than serious players. The same holds true for most one-person political attacks.
If this one really did have "planning, experience, and metalwork" then maybe he is high enough functioning to not fit that pattern, but it is a pattern.
"
Random lunatics either attack people at random or because they're famous, i.e. in the news. We've had a lot of press and hysteria over this recently.
So it could be a Trump supporter because he's got them spun up, an anti-Trump person because he's got them spun up, or someone who basically has no politics because they're not functional enough but has joined the chaos because of the voices in their head.
Judging from history, the way to bet is that third group.
"
The change in abortion laws is apparently responsible for a lot of deaths before it was passed.
Massive spikes in deaths in 2020 and 2021. Law was passed in Sept of 2021. Deaths came down a lot in 2022.
“We’ll let innocents suffer as part of a protest action against political decisions we don’t like?”... is one way to interpret the data.
I would guess doctors didn't know what the law was going to be, were afraid it would be applied retroactively, and got caught up in hysteria.
"
Speaking as someone who wants to make abortion legal in all situations, looking at the data in Chip's link, I think Duck is correct.
The number of people dying spiked wildly before the law was passed and dropped after it did. We're not back to normal, and we might not get to normal, but we need to wait another year or two before we can make that evaluation.
"
From your own link, pregnancy deaths spiked in 2020 and then again in 2021 (that law was passed in Sept 2021) and then went down a lot in 2022.
I think we're looking at people/doctors over reacting and it's unclear if maternal deaths will drop to where they were.
"
I am so glad I've already voted and can ignore all this.
"
That was 3 years ago, so right after the laws changed. Is this sort of thing still a problem?
My less-than-one-minute of research suggested the laws haven't been changed, and the legislature didn't want this to be the result. I didn't find others but I didn't look very hard.
If it's not still a problem then the hospital was being unnecessarily legally cautious.
On “What If Kamala Wins?”
Kick out the Berniecrats and I'd be trilled to join a more business friendly Team Blue.
On “The Way Through is Donald Trump for President”
Without COVID, in 2020 Trump would have crushed any Team Blue opposition. The Trump economy would have been in full swing and he arguably did things to encourage growth.
For all of the unhelpful things he did with Covid, Operation Warp Speed got us a vaccination (actually 2.5 vaccinations) in less than a year which was supposed to be impossible.
After he left office, we went back to extremely slow approvals of vaccinations and didn't see a covid update for more than a year.
Trump had extremely strong arguments for deserving a 2nd term. Of course he pissed all of that away on Jan 6th (and so on). His various crimes-he-should-be-charged-over all happened after he lost the election.
"
CJColucci: Team Red would say the same thing if Harris were the second coming of Abraham Lincoln.
They would, but I would not be saying it.
Here is her CNN interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl9gPBasyv4&list=PLxzNezk7uSpPKgEOsA4SkI0gGU1wKHbZ9&index=17
Q1: What would you do on day one?
A1: My priority is the middle class. [then more word salad].
She gets asked that question again and says something about "her other proposals" and (finally) something about a tax credit (which means sending that idea to Congress).
So she's extremely vague in her answer and has vague intentions.
Q2: What do you say to voters who do want to go back to the Trump economy for housing and groceries?
A2: Says Trump was bad. Admits that prices are too high and need to come down. [something about price gouging, some more tax credits]
Q3: The stuff that you're talking about, why haven't you done them already?
A3: We have to recover as an economy. [Something about a specific drug's price]. A few other specific accomplishments.
Q4: Fracking
A: She insists that her values haven't changed (talks about values) even though her position has flipped.
Good answers:
A1: I will pass an executive order saying "X,Y,Z".
A2: Trump doesn't have the ability to bring back his economy and his tariffs are a tax on American taxpayers. I will encourage American farmers to make more food via X,Y,Z.
A3: I wasn't President then (although if she says this then she needs to be able to list things she'd do differently than Joe which she has failed to do in other questions).
A4: The actions and self destruction of Russia, Venezuela, and Iran have changed the market. I'd rather have natural gas than coal. Fracking has it's place in the overall energy mix although long term it's on the way out.
"
Chip: Is it somehow un-possible, that 45% of Americans would accept racist policies?
Given that you've redefined it to mean "in the way of Team Blue"? Sure, absolutely.
Microaggressions (which require Team Blue to identify) are racist. DEI insists that being white means you're super privileged and ergo racist.
So this totally means that Trump is a racist, just everyone else.
I suggest you find a different argument to prevent Trump's election, because racism is a dead horse.
"
Chip: about 45% of the American electorate will knowingly, willingly, choose the racist dictator.
If you want racism to be a seriously evil crime that we take seriously, then you can't also claim that everyone is racist. You also can't use that claim in every election.
Ditto the dictator claims. After you dumb it down to mean "is in the way of Team Blue", it doesn't mean anything.
So yes, it's a mistake to use these accusations against everyone who gets in your way.
"
That's true.
However they insisted the VP be a black female and that came at the expense of "most electable" and/or "most leadership experience".
Team Red is claiming that she's been hiding in the White House doing solitaire for the last 2+ years and every time she answers with word salad it reenforces that.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.