Comments by RandomMember (page 11)

@Hodler wrote: "There's also a chance their healthcare costs went up for another reason and it coincided with Obamacares passing." @Yahtzee is correct that a small percentage of upper-middle-class people, who bought under the ACA exchanges, got screwed on ACA health insurance premiums. However new subsidies for that upper-income group are part of the new Biden Stimulus package. The ACA is popular now. The vast majority of people who got insurance through their employer (like 150M) saw no change in premiums whatsoever under the ACA. Another 20M, who were not previously insured, got insurance under the ACA (mostly through Medicaid expansion). While not perfect, it's been a success and the ACA is now woven into the fabric of our healthcare system.

I was referring to @Subra's comment that "WASPs are (the single most successful ethnic group)"

I doubt that's true. I've stated about a dozen times that East Indians are by far the highest earners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income If you look at the above link under "By detailed ancestry" Indian Americans have the highest household income of $135K followed by Taiwanese Americans at $102K. Median white American household at $66K. English ancestry $78K. I don't know where jews stand in terms of average income. I do know they excel in terms of creativity and academics with 20% of the Nobel Prizes going to Jews even though they account for 0.2% of the world's population. Especially in areas like economics and the hard-core physical sciences.

We've addressed this topic many times. SA does the best they can to terminate and ban members that exchange messages to the effect of "let's have a car date or meet at hotel X for amount $Y. I doubt that sugaring on SA will ever suffer the same fate as Backpage. I doubt it will ever be illegal. Does it amount to prostitution? Yes, I've always considered sugaring a benign form of prostitution. The hot 20-yr-olds I've had in the past would never be sleeping with me without an exchange of money. Despite what some of the bald sixty-yr-olds post here, it amounts to prostitution in many, if not most, cases. There are exceptions when the age difference isn't so vast. It's possible to find normal, hot, well-adjusted, college girls online if that's what you want. If you prefer drugged-out heroin addicts, there's always your local dive-y strip club (post Covid).

@Mark: "I’m still waiting for someone to address this directly." ______________ Do you really think the Supreme Court is going to get involved with such a profoundly stupid and meritless case? Why? Because Trump appointed three SC justices and they owe him something in terms of loyalty? The ACA lawsuit was also profoundly stupid, and the SC signaled that it will support the ACA. Both Kavanaugh and Roberts indicated that they will support the ACA. Just because the court is 6-3 does not mean that horseshit suits will always win with a conservative bias. The point is, the SC is not Trump's Kangaroo court. Snarky quote from Roberts on the ACA: " On severance question, hard to argue that Congress intended entire ACA to fall when the same Congress did not even try to repeal the rest of the Act. I think, frankly, they wanted the Court to do that but that's not our job." It's no surprise that @Mark continues to be a nutcase. What's disturbing is that 70 million people voted for an incompetent and mentally ill reality TV star.

Worked in hardware store, Italian restaurant. Went on to be welfare cheat. (Partially embellished to make @Skibum happy)

"Greeting card salesman (Hallmark)" _________________ You do have a gift for bringing an uplifting tone to most topics.

@GammaNut wrote: "Has anyone else been reading the crazy laundry lists of all the groups coming out of the woodwork claiming that they won the victory for Biden?" __________________________ No, I didn't notice. But then I'm not a nutty right-wing reactionary and we probably don't read the same news sources. The exit polling was far more mundane, showing that support for Biden among moderates and independents increased by 12%. That was the single biggest demographic shit compared to 2012. And support among non-college-educated white men was overwhelmingly for Trump. Again. Trump owes his election in 2012 to that group. With a moderate Democrat in the executive and a GOP-controlled Senate, I wouldn't worry about us turning into Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Lol, you write some of the goofiest, most hysterical, rants of anyone on TUSCL. @Mark: I'll take the bet that Biden is in office on Jan 20. If you lose, you agree to ten strip club visits wearing a 24-inch tinfoil hat. And you must post selfies here on TUSCL to verify.

Kayleigh had a double mastectomy, so stripping may not be in her future.

Lol, at the @OP quoting InfoWars. Another member of the TUSCL tinfoil hat crowd.

"First, kudos. An effective vaccine is clearly a win, no, THE WIN. " ___________________ Absolutely, and now there's more justification for moderate and targeted lockdowns while waiting for the vaccine to be produced and distributed.

Take your Xanax, @Mark. I hear it's effective with anxiety and PMS

Yeah, just heard about Esper's firing. Could be another Trump temper-tantrum and childish action to settle the score. Or it could be something more ominous -- like preparing to use the military against our citizens. I don't think the latter is overly paranoid. Just look at some of the comments in this thread.

@Orange: "You asked and Joe delivered! Not so sleepy after all I guess! Cured Covid ONE DAY after winning the Presidency! " _______________ If I understand correctly, Pfizer is manufacturing the vaccine and primary credit for actually developing the vaccine goes to the German company, BioNTech. We'll call it the Merkel vaccine since she's been the leader of the free world for a while. Yes, the news is encouraging but preliminary.

@Mark: "If so, watch what happens next." ---------------------------- That sounds a lot like a prediction of violence in the streets, but you can correct me if I'm wrong. I've been saying for months that Republicans were oblivious to the polls and ignoring the fact that Trump was likely to lose. It's impossible to argue with conspiracy theorists. If the Dems were smart enough to rig the presidential vote in their favor, it's a mystery why they didn't also cheat the Senate races and the Senate majority in their favor. What counts is that GOP leaders, especially in the Senate, need to speak out and put an end to questioning the election's validity. That's yet to happen. The longer they wait, the more it gets entrenched with conspiracy-theory nutcases.

@Meathead- It may be hard to comprehend for a semi-literate clod like yourself, but your candidate lost the election. Sites like 538 and The Economist provide simulations and don't do any polling; instead, they combine the results of other polls into predictions about the election outcome. Both got the qualitative features correct about which states were likely to flip: WI, MI, AZ, PA. Florida did not flip, but it was still within the margin of error. If you weren't such a semi-literate clod you might understand the value of the polling and simulations, even if support for Trump was stronger than expected in the last two cycles. What a relief it will be to never hear from Trump again.

@Gamma: " Wanting honest, transparent elections free from fraud and ballot harvesting should not be a partisan issue." _____________ Got it. Goofy voter having a hard time coping with reality. Told you this was coming.

I followed the election simulations at 538 and The Economist in the months leading up to the election. Also followed one of the betting markets, Predictit. Both of the simulators had Biden winning easily with 538 giving Trump a 10% chance of winning and The Economist only 3%. Most of the polling averages of battleground states on 538 were off quite a bit. Still, both predicted the qualitative features of the election correctly with Biden taking Arizona and the battleground states in the Midwest. All in all, I think both sites are still worth following. Predictit varied all over the place and the polling/simulations were more reliable than the betting market. Don't understand the privacy issue? If someone wants to know my voting preference, I don't see the big deal.

Random thoughts: (*) The polling was inaccurate and the election was far closer than indicated by sites like 538 and The Economist. But it looks like Biden will win and that's the only thing people will remember about the polling. (*) It's very disappointing to Democrats that the Senate is unlikely to flip (polling and simulations were incorrect here, too). Look for gridlock for at least the next two years. Those that find themselves destitute because of the pandemic may find that no further help is on the way. Forget about raising the corporate tax rate. I'm guessing the ACA will not be repealed by the supreme court -- but forget about Biden's plan to add a Medicare buy-in. (*) After Trump launched his campaign under the premise that Mexicans are rapists and murderers, he won Florida and S. Texas from strong Hispanic support. Go figure. Puerto Ricans and Cubans voted for Trump under the ludicrous assumption that Biden is a socialist.

WaPo fact-checker on this topic: "No, Biden did not confuse George W. Bush and Donald Trump" https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/26/no-biden-did-not-confuse-george-w-bush-donald-trump/ The video posted by @Orange was manipulated to edit out video frames showing comedian George Lopez (who was interviewing Biden) and commentator Ana Navarro. With the video frame of Lopez edited out, viewers have no idea whether Biden was addressing "George" Lopez and not referring to GWB. The article presents the doctored video and the original video side-by-side. Post rated the stunt 4-Pinocchios.

More than anything else it shows how stupid Giuliani is. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

If you notice, @GammaNu claims to have me on ignore, yet he's obsessed with insulting me over and over in multiple posts. @GammaNu is a guy who started a thread stating that the death of @Nina's relatives was a silver-lining to the pandemic, yet he's an authority on what constitutes good behavior on the board. For the record, @Gamma, the part about about the PhD in physics from MIT isn't too far off. One of the grads from my alma mater picked up another Nobel prize this year. We have the highest number of Nobel Prizes, per capita, in the world.

This is an Ozzie and Harriet 1950s view of the world where men are the breadwinners and women stay at home cleaning the dishes. Most households are dual-income these days and professional women would roll their eyes at this kind of goofy post. Nobody gets married for the sole purpose of getting sex.

^^^ Major election simulations like those at the Financial Times and the Economist are overseas and don't have an axe to grind. Both have Trump behind. If you listen you might learn something.

The best polling and statistics available show that Biden has about a 90% chance of winning. Biden is not guaranteed to win and polls can be wrong. At the same time, 90% of Republicans think that Trump will win (that's from a Gallop poll). So the situation is exactly the opposite of what you're describing. The polls have been exceptionally stable, unlike 2016. If Trump loses, there could be violence, and we would have a lame-duck period to deal with a desperate president, who may be facing civil and criminal actions. Weather predictions for the following day are sometimes wrong, but that doesn't stop anyone from checking the weather report.