discussion comment
3 years ago
Demings was a vocal open borders supporter until she decided to run for the Senate. Now, she is all “ seal the borders !”. The political ads almost write themselves.
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3 years ago
Cruz was re-elected in 2018. I don’t think he will have his hands full. At least not until 2024.
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3 years ago
“No it's not Omicron. I've had both my shots plus my booster,“
Lots of people testing positive for Omicron have had both their shots plus the booster. That doesn’t mean you have Omicron. But, it does mean you can’t rule out the possibility.
discussion comment
3 years ago
The best predictor of who controls the House of Representatives is the generic Republican/Democrat preference poll. Historically, Democrats need a 4% advantage in this poll to control the House. Currently, Republicans have a 10% advantage which translates to a 50 congressman majority. But, yes, 10 months is an eternity in politics. Anything an happen.
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3 years ago
I’m on the older part of the spectrum. I have enough money that I could make myself a target for most dancers, but prefer to spend just enough to keep a few favorites interested and friendly. I treat all dancers with respect and find I usually get the same in return.
When I was a good looking, poor 26 year old, I had no interest in strip clubs.
discussion comment
3 years ago
Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer have the thinnest of margins but, for the last year, they have tried to change everything about our country. They have governed as though they have an overwhelming mandate from the American people. They don’t.
That’s what is unprecedented about what is going on.
The leftists want to know why everyone is so pissed off ? Why are people so uncivil ? Why won’t people just do what the government tells them to do ?
That’s why.
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3 years ago
In 10 months, there’s going to be an election. Based on all the current polling, it will be a Republican landslide in Congress. And, it won’t be those nice establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell taking office. It will be those nasty, mean, confrontational Trump supporters like Ted Cruz.
Then, for the next 2 years, they are going to hold investigations. Is Joe Biden senile ? Is Hunter Biden a crook ? Is China responsible for CoVid ? Did Fauci lie to Congress ? What really happened in Afghanistan ? How bad is illegal immigration ?
For those on this thread being depressed about their lives are like in 2022, think about what 2023 and 2024 have in store.
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3 years ago
Nice spice: At the risk at being told by Icey that I’m spewing QAnon BS, I had another thought about 1971 as a turning point. That was the year Nixon took us off the gold standard. Some people consider that a significant turning point. Either way, it’s an interesting subject that was much debated at the time. Once the gold standard was gone, Nixon was able to spend his way to re-election ( thus causing massive inflation and economic disaster for the next President ).
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3 years ago
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old...They literally know nothing.”
--Ben Rhodes, Obama Deputy National Security Advisor
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3 years ago
“Saying we have more technology and knowledge than a hundred years ago is irrelevant to the fact that we have grave problems.”
It used to be common for young children to die of diseases that no longer exist. People starved. Actually died from a lack of food. Most people never traveled further than 20 miles from their birthplace. Formal education ended at age 12, when kids began to work.
Do you have any of these problems ?
discussion comment
3 years ago
One of the theories about why millions of people have dropped out of the workforce, post CoVid, is because two-income families realized how little income that second income stream really brought in after factoring in taxes, day care, commuting cost, and other work-related expenses.
discussion comment
3 years ago
Every person on this forum has a much better life, from a material standpoint, than the richest man in the world 100 years ago. Medicine. Food availability. Air travel. Entertainment. Everything.
From the moment we wake up until we go to sleep, everyday, our lives are filled with comfort, luxury, and wonder that couldn’t be imagined 100 years ago.
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3 years ago
Here’s the thing that politicians know. Government can provide all sorts of “free” stuff ( or, fund a war like Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq) without raising taxes, but the real bill doesn’t come due for many years when the currency is devalued and inflation kicks in. Unlike income tax, inflation hits lower income people the hardest.
So, politicians spend their careers handing out goodies, claiming it’s free, and taking credit for it. Then, they are shocked, shocked I tell you, when inflation destroys the economy. By then, the politicians who are responsible are retired and living in a mansion behind security gates.
That’s why the expenses of Vietnam ( and Medicare, Medicaid, and the Great Society ) of the late 60s caused inflation and economic hardship in the 70s.
You know all that money the government spent while locking down the country during CoVid ? The bill is just starting to come due now in the form of inflation. I expect we’ll be paying for that for years to come. The wealthy will see their investments grow and will do fine. The working man will see expenses exceed wage growth and will struggle. The politicians will retire to Martha’s Vineyard and Palm Beach.
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3 years ago
Took a few interstate hitchhiking trips in my teens. Got a ride in a semi truck once. Another time in the bed of a pickup truck. It all seemed normal and ordinary back then.
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3 years ago
“apparently 1971 was a fulcrum point for a lot of things “
A lot of this is explained by the post-Vietnam era of high inflation and high deficits from 1971-1981. High inflation is especially damaging to the working class. The Carter years of 1976-1980 were characterized by stagflation ( recession and inflation ). It took extremely high interest rates and federal budget discipline in the early 1980s to get inflation under control.
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3 years ago
“In 2020”
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3 years ago
Here’s a little food for thought.
In 1941, the Japanese took a chance and bombed Pearl Harbor. They hoped it would wipe out our naval power, dispirit us as nation, and prevent us from entering WWII. It failed. Our aircraft carriers survived and we got really pissed off. Japan ended up in flames.
In 2000, the Chinese made the decision to hide CoVid long enough to allow it to spread around the world. Whether this was their plan from the beginning, or a reaction to its accidental leak from Wuhan, is unclear. But, they gambled it would destroy the World economy and allow China to dominate. They were wrong. As we come out of the fog of CoVid, we are going to turn our attention to what China did. We aren’t going to Nuke them, but we are going to make sure they pay a serious price for what they did.
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3 years ago
1930s Depression
1940s WWII
1950S Korea
1960s Assassinations/Vietnam/Cities Burning
1970s/1980s Nuclear Cold War
2010s Social Media gives us the sads
Yeah, never been worse. Life is so unfair. Woe is me.
discussion comment
3 years ago
Incidentally, there are parallels to the manner in which the government responded to the AIDS crisis and CoVid. In both cases, it was a very real threat to a segment of the population, the “experts” exaggerated the risk to the general population, and the government bureaucracy delayed and botched the development of treatments.
In both situations, Anthony Fauci was at the center of the decisions being made.
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3 years ago
Ten years from now, when someone writes an honest history of CoVid, it will go something like this.
CoVid came out of the Wuhan lab and was funded, in part, by grants from the US government and incompetent, corrupt health “experts”. It was a very real threat to the older population and those with chronic health problems. But, rather than simply protect those at risk, health bureaucrats around the world inspired a panic, over reacted, viewed a vaccine as the only solution ( rather than natural immunity and therapeutics ), used this as an excuse to grab political control, and shut down the economy. The media and big tech went along with this false view of the virus. It took a couple years, but the general population finally saw through this deception and inspired a political revolt against the expert class of bureaucrats and politicians.
discussion comment
3 years ago
The media has done such a good job of scaring people that the ERs are filling up with people who have tested positive but have no symptoms. That allows for more scary articles about how hospitals are filling up.
discussion comment
3 years ago
The Sigal Lab from S. Africa has just shown that antibodies produced after Omicron infection neutralize the Delta variant.
Combined with the increased transmissibility and mild symptoms associated with Omicron, this could signal an off ramp from the pandemic.
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3 years ago
With the benefit of hindsight, here is how we should have responded to CoVid as soon as it reached the US
1. Implement Operation Warp for vaccines pretty much the way it was done.
2. Implement a similar operation warp speed for therapeutics and treatment. This has not yet been done. In fact, the federal bureaucracy has been putting up road blocks to therapeutics.
3. Vaccinate those 65+, as well as those with chronic conditions. By focusing on this group, vaccinations could have been completed by July 1, 2021 or earlier.
4. Manufacture and distribute therapeutics under emergency provisions as soon as they showed some promise. These could have been in doctors hands in early 2021 for off label uses of existing drugs showing promise.
5. Do not establish mask mandates ( largely ineffective ). Implement isolation and lock down for a few months for those 65+. Encourage, but do not mandate, work from home and limiting travel and large gatherings until vaccinations of 65+ was complete.
6. Close our borders to prevent the spread.
7. Rather than spreading CoVid fear porn, communicate that younger, healthy individuals have little to fear.
discussion comment
3 years ago
We're eight months into this pandemic, and Donald Trump still doesn't have a plan to get this virus under control.
I do.
Joe Biden October 2020
There is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level
Joe Biden Today
discussion comment
3 years ago
On Dec. 26, 189,714 new cases of COVID-19 were reported. Of those, 54,828 came from New York City. This means that 28.9% of new cases reported for Dec. 26 came from the Big Apple.
That’s right. The city with the most stringent mask and vaccine mandates has 28.9% of the national cases. Go figure.