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Trump Part 16

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sean99 said:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/shu...n-5-us-workers-live-paycheck-to-paycheck.html

80% of workers living paycheck to paycheck in a country with precious little safety net, and where even with health insurance an accident or illness can easily cost tens of thousands. I think Americans only put up with this because they've been scared into thinking it's even worse everywhere else in the world. All Europeans should be forced to live in the US for a few years (just in case they ever begrudge the tax paid) and all Americans should be forced to live in the EU for a few years (so that they can find out just how much better it is to pay a little more tax in return for having some insurance against lifes ups and downs).
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And I am not sure the 'lower taxes' thing in the US is true either. I pay Federal tax, state tax, social security tax, state disability tax, sales tax, property tax (and probably a few others) as well as paying employee health premiums. If you add that all together it may be no lower than the average EU tax rate.
 
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MartinC said:
And I am not sure the 'lower taxes' thing in the US is true either. I pay Federal tax, state tax, social security tax, state disability tax, sales tax, property tax (and probably a few others) as well as paying employee health premiums. If you add that all together it may be no lower than the average EU tax rate.
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Agree - especially when you add in property tax ($8.5k a year for me - totally unrelated to income). Plus if you are self employed and paying health insurance ($20k per year for a family) the US starts to look more like Scandinavian levels of tax/health payments with none of the benefits. But hey, what a military !!?
 
The Cortez distraction, for me, is another reason to despair for the state of American politics.
But it does figure that a quasi-socialist twitter darling from the Sanders campaign hitting a few popular notes obscures what appears to be a real lack of knowledge or intellectual depth on pressing issues. I realize she's young, but anyone of this new guard who is dead wrong about something so germane to the concerns of her following (employment) and who isn't banging a virtual gavel for climate change doesn't inspire me in the least. It's just the continued lowering of the same bar courtesy of democratized news and information.
 
Marky-Mark said:
The Cortez distraction, for me, is another reason to despair for the state of American politics.
But it does figure that a quasi-socialist twitter darling from the Sanders campaign hitting a few popular notes obscures what appears to be a real lack of knowledge or intellectual depth on pressing issues. I realize she's young, but anyone of this new guard who is dead wrong about something so germane to the concerns of her following (employment) and who isn't banging a virtual gavel for climate change doesn't inspire me in the least. It's just the continued lowering of the same bar courtesy of democratized news and information.
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i don't think you are familiar with her positions because what you've written there is nonsense.
 
Why is it nonsense? Did she not completely misstate the USA's current causes of unemployment, or is she not a Twitter darling? Or did she not work for the Sanders campaign? Or perhaps she's not a quasi-socialist? Has she elevated the daunting challenges of climate change above Twitter wars and I missed it? *It would help me understand which part is nonsense to reply sensibly.

I'm familiar with a few of her television interviews and I found her patently wanting. Not to Trump levels, certainly, but nothing matching the typical load of hype bandied about in social media circles.
 
DonQuixote99 said:
You are William F Buckley and I claim my $5.00 extension to a National Review subscription.
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Can't help you. I'm not a conservative and though I did occasionally agree with Buckley on minor points and found him a somewhat entertaining spectacle in a stable of boring talking heads, I've never been aligned with his views beyond that.
 
Nonetheless I found yours a thoroughly-Buckleyesque denunciation. You practically tut-tut at the fuss populist conservative critics are raising, but the subject is cast as lightweight pink media creation. All done from a position of detached superiority.
 
DonQuixote99 said:
Nonetheless I found yours a thoroughly-Buckleyesque denunciation. You practically tut-tut at the fuss populist conservative critics are raising, but the subject is cast as lightweight pink media creation. All done from a position of detached superiority.
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I don't care about the critics; I make up my own mind. I watched her being interviewed and wasn't impressed. Having said that, I'm not terribly impressed by politicians on the whole. Much like what I've read here from posters in that pathologically recursive Brexit thread.

With that in mind (Brexit), I'd say the sooner discourse moves away from labelling people you don't agree with as acting superior or detached or whatever the current side A vs. side B battle meme vernacular finds fashionable, the sooner we go from a tower of babble to something not necessarily better, but at least it'll be intellectually honest with some integrity. But then perhaps making it about snark points, upvotes, likes and followers is all the medium offers.
 
Marky-Mark said:
I don't care about the critics; I make up my own mind. I watched her being interviewed and wasn't impressed. Having said that, I'm not terribly impressed by politicians on the whole. Much like what I've read here from posters in that pathologically recursive Brexit thread.

With that in mind (Brexit), I'd say the sooner discourse moves away from labelling people you don't agree with as acting superior or detached or whatever the current side A vs. side B battle meme vernacular finds fashionable, the sooner we go from a tower of babble to something not necessarily better, but at least it'll be intellectually honest with some integrity. But then perhaps making it about snark points, upvotes, likes and followers is all the medium offers.
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You're right to note that I made you the subject. I accept your correction. Though I deny indulging in vernacular fashion to do it, it was my own idea.

The medium, as you note, makes lightweight snark the thing to do. Attempts to touch on things in a more fundamental way generally attract little or no interaction.
 
DonQuixote99 said:
The medium, as you note, makes lightweight snark the thing to do. Attempts to touch on things in a more fundamental way generally attract little or no interaction.
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That's a good point, and it's basically what I'm driving at with Cortez. For example, I nearly always hear of her in the context of some silly-ass jejune Twitter spectacle. And before someone says that's due to Twitter and not her, I would say go look at her latest incident-de-Cortez and you'll find where she and two of her freshmen colleagues (both female) were running around the capitol, iPhones umbilically wired to Twitter, "chasing" Mitch McConnell around to 'confront him' on the shutdown when supposedly they were told he would not be on the Floor or in either of his two offices this A.M. by his staff.

Now, you can assume the staff is truthful and perhaps he is hiding from them, but what you can take from it with fair confidence is that the three freshmen congress ladies would appear to revel in this sort of shit being posted on Twitter, since they did just that, and all the while when this is a really dire issue for Govt. workers while they're being paid.

They've come from social media and I'm going to assume think the battles will be won on social media as part of just such circus. If you don't think that accurate, I'd suggest you to google the terms 'Cortez twitter' and peruse the hits. Maybe they're somewhat correct and people tethered to their phones are the people to convince to effect change, I don't know but don't think so. Whatever the case, it's still ridiculous to me that this sort of behavior and spectacle-cum-entertainment creates the buzz and hype that Ms. Cortez depends on. If some substance appears, great. I'm not holding my breath!
 
Thanks, I hadn't seen that Jan. 4th news. In analogy to taxing the wealthy 70% a possible reality, I'd like to think the green tea I'm sipping would make me a disease-resistant freelance porn star putting the 'biggest' names in the business to shame, but uh ...

In all seriousness, what's the plan for all that foo money she's going to raise? Because I haven't read a single scientist who thinks throwing money at mother nature is going to accomplish anything to pull our asses out of the fire. With all respect, that's a 100% lightweight proposal that sounds a little like a pageant winner answering "world peace" for one wish.
 
Trump’s new Huckabee-Saunders mini me-

Meet Hogan
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does Hogey share the same trichologist as Trump?
 
If one believes that Buzzfeed is reporting accurately, power has shifted in Washington DC. Mueller has absolute evidence that Trump suborned perjury in testimony before Congress, and McConnell is the man who can use that evidence to impeach Trump, whenever he may decide to do it.

Trump works for McConnell now. In another time, Trump would be toast, but we know the measure of McConnell and the tribe he leads. Owning Trump is power. They will grab it with both hands, and keep it as long as they can.

https://abovethelaw.com/2019/01/donald-trump-legally-over/
 
The progressive branch is such a effing mess. From the Buzzfeeds and Rawstorys to the snark doctors ala Wonkette, all the way to the career making Twitter-ers and back, Mueller's investigation has been turned into a sideshow of click-money, ego, and I won the internet today warriors. And all because abject mediocrity in the flow of information has been enshrined in pixels.
 
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