It gives us a strategic advantage over others in response to any crisis or event in the middle east or anywhere in western europe. We're able to send troops, supplies, and wounded soldiers someplace far closer than the US without the need to move aircraft carriers.

This also isn't about saving money. We're going to spend billions shifting some of those same troops to Poland because their president kisses Trump's ass and suggested the first base built there should be named Fort Trump.

What Putin wants, Putin gets.

Quality of the employment pool would also go up by raising pay. Something Amazon can definitely afford to do but chooses not to.

We don't. They aren't there to protect Europe anyway. We use troops in Germany to help with operations outside Europe.

Don't get me wrong, this is being done as a petty move against Germany and has nothing to do with what's best for America. But it really doesn't matter.

Follow up on this. Here is Kodak's stock.



This also seemed to make a lot of people rich who just so happened to have impeccable timing. This is a crime btw that no one will look into.

Kodak stock volume has ranged from 52k to 215k shares per day since July 1. On Monday, the day before WH announcement, 1,645,000 shares traded hands. https://t.co/d0Q0gCbVqq

— Reid Wilson (@PoliticsReid) July 29, 2020

Amazon pay goes pretty far in poorer parts of the country. Dishwashers at the Whole Foods in my town make more than CNAs treating COVID patients down the street. The $15/hour minimum has been an absolute game changer in parts of the country like this. They fire and hire liberally and have their pick of employees because they're paying more than double the standard rate for similar types of jobs elsewhere in town.

The entry-level Whole Foods jobs are less than you could make unemployed now. But they have no problem finding people. If you can get in the front door, better to get your time and experience in, and move up the payscale, than sit at home and hope for Republicans in Congress to keep taking care of you. And there's a lot of security in grocery employment if you're not a fuckup. And if you're not lucky enough to be at Whole Foods, better to get experience and some good references somewhere else rather than sit at home, if you have that choice.

Of course this "Amazon advantage" is irrelevant in other places with higher minimum wages.

Here's another part of it, wages have been able to be held down for some time because we had more workers than jobs. Prior to the whole COVID episode, many manufacturers in my sector (food and bev) were looking for workers and were beginning to increase wages to try and attract people. Then COVID hit, and it all went to hell.

A big part of wages is getting places to near full employment. I remember back in 2007 or so, it was before the crash, in Champaign, IL some fast food places were shutting down because they could not attract workers at $12 an hour. Now they would probably go to the kiosks, but I was floored wages were that high for fast food. My buddy who lived there said they were at essentially 0% (not actually) unemployment. As an entrepreneur, he was having to turn business away because he could not afford to hire the workers to work the projects (it was not economical). Of course 1-1/2 years later, wages came down and he was able to diversify because labor was cheaper with so many out of work.

Just wondering how many Tree guys I gotta call before I get a call back or someone to come out a do an estimate.

I'd get so many more home improvement projects if I didn't dread the whole process of just getting them started. People don't call back, don't show up for in-home estimates, show up late, act annoyed when I finally get a hold of them, etc. I want to spend some money right now but I keep putting it off.

So to answer your question, 8, call 8 tree guys. Maybe 2 will get back to you and 1 will show up at your house.

I had that problem about 2 years ago when I was prepping my house to be sold. The driveway needed to be re-paved. I couldn't get anyone to even come give an estimate. Tried 30 or more companies.

While on a walk, my wife walked by some guys paving a sidewalk for the city. One of those guys ended up coming and doing it with his son on a Sunday for cash.

This works! We found our tree guy the same way. He was the one doing all the trees for the park district. Worked some kind of week on/week off deal. With his week off, surprise, he does tree work. Don’t know how many tree guys we tried. Upwards of a dozen. Even had one come out and do some of the work only to disappear in to the either. The park district guy was amazing.

Some people, especially Democrats, seem confused by this thread. It's simple: faithful folks don't fear death because we believe in the afterlife. How long are we going to allow fear, over #COVID19, to control our lives? WI & IN are having fall sports, why can't we? #ILSen #Twill

— Fmr. Sheriff Mark Curran (R-IL) ���� (@ElectMarkCurran) July 30, 2020

How is "If you vote for me, you and your family members are more likely to suffer preventable illness and death, but the real issue is that y'all fear death too much" going to play in the suburbs this Fall?

dola:

I mean, this isn't even one of those "COVID is a hoax" guys. He admits that this will kill you. He just thinks you are a bad Christian if you mind.

And Trump floats his first "delay the election" tweet. Post-November 3rd could be even uglier than the past 6 months have been.

I get that billions are on the line so can appreciate the position the 4 are in and the BS from the 3.

It may have happened but not in the quote below, I would have thought Congress would have been prepared with some examples and made the 3 squirm more.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/30/tech/...ina/index.html

I could be way off base, but I think that the two competing concerns here are that (1) he does not want to be President anymore, but (2) he cannot handle the idea of losing.

So I think that the play will be to declare the election fraudulent, but to leave when he is supposed to, under protest.

Which is still pretty damaging, but not quite as bad as getting the Border Patrol goons to lead a coup.

I disagree. If he can get away with this, along with suppression of vote and sending secret police out, he's locking us in. He'll be talking how Biden should be arrested next.

You can see his id unleashed, he knows he's unpopular, he knows there is a good chance without cheating, that he's gone and the reverberations to his ego (not to mention potential legal implications) that he would be a loser are not acceptable.

If he can't steal it, he'll burn it down.

Just checking in to see how Edward twists himself into a knot trying to suggest Trump is right in wanting to delay the election.

Please proceed.

This was literally the hyperbolic example I would use to test Trumpists to see how far they would go and to a fault almost all of them said that they wouldn't accept Trump not leaving office if he lost the election OR tried to delay an election so he could remain.

Lets see if they remain true to their word.

Hold on, they need to update his programming. Remarks aren’t prepared yet

Can someone embed that tweet?

First we need a definition of “delay”.

Oh and I will wait for your APA or AMA cited sourced response.

Trump always gives them wiggle room.

He didn't stand next to Putin on stage and issue an order delaying the election. That would not be acceptable.

Instead, he talked about voter fraud and how maybe we should consider whether we should delay the election until we can do it safely.

What's the matter, Flasch? Do you think we should have fraud? Wouldn't you rather the election be done fairly? You are willing to keep schools and bars closed and have millions lose their jobs, but you are OK with elderly poll workers getting COVID and dying? You really don't think that the biggest pandemic is a century is worth having a mere discussion about having a safe election?

It's mainly instinct, but Trump's really good at this.

Fauci says eye protection can help prevent spread of coronavirus

So who here is pro-goggle and who is anti-goggle?

2Q contracted by 9.5% - largest quarterly economic contraction on record. Jobless claims were 1.4 million again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...2-coronavirus/

And increased unemployment benefits expire tomorrow...

I mean it makes sense. If the virus gets in your eyes, it can easily get in your bloodstream.

No need, pretty clear what that means. A "delay" without Congressional approval is not acceptable.

However, am still eagerly waiting for Webster (?) to come up with a new definition of racism. Until then I'll stick with the ADL-definition (they should know best shouldn't they?) instead of the made-up-twitter-speak which often conflates racism with plain old prejudice/bigotry.

With that said, I do not think Trump is wrong to question possibility of fraud with nation-wide mail-in. It is reasonable to assume with a "new process" there needs to be a review of how this would happen, the checks in place, audit trail etc. and some sort of governance if/when results are contested.

I think the general response to this among your standard neighborhood/in-law Trump supporters will be, "well, if you guys think COVID is such a big deal, you shouldn't have any problem with this!"

That's the way they don't have to back down either on COVID or on Trump's use of power.

From his perspective, I think he's just starting the hard push to train his supporters, and to tell himself, that the November results are not legitimate.

Shit. Herman Cain died from COVID.

Whoa! I'd hope this means some people will take it more seriously, but who knows.

This tweet?

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020

Voting occurs in the states and trying to spin this as a new “nation-wide” event is false on its face. The only nation wide service required is the USPS so unless you are suggesting Bob and Sally mail clerk are the masterminds behind a scheme to tamper with millions of ballots there is no issue or proof of this ever happening. . This is also not a “new process” as every state has some form of absentee ballot (ie vote from home, mail in voting, insert any other name here).

Sorry if I missed this but would appreciate a response to #25696 & #25697 re:

Quote:

I'm very interested in hearing your immigrant family members' perspective on American Exceptionalism and/or Land of Opportunity.

Oh, sorry if I misunderstood. Isn't the proposal to do nation-wide mail in voting? e.g. as in far greater degree and scale than absentee ballots?

If this is correct, it is a "new process". The scale and nos. are much, much greater.

If the request is just scale it up some (e.g. +10%), I agree its not new. But I didn't think that was the case.

Damn.

For what?

RIP

I should've bought the full plague doctor mask instead of the half mask.

Did he use ZINC though? That’s the key

Thanks. Craziness.

Not sure if this is where he got it but Cain was at the Tulsa rally. Hopefully people start taking this seriously.

oops

dying to own the libs. Very next level.

Here’s just a few of the #BlackVoicesForTrump at tonight’s rally! Having a fantastic time!#TulsaRally2020 #Trumptulsa #TulsaTrumprally #MAGA #Trump2020 #Trump2020Landslide pic.twitter.com/27mUzkg7kL

— Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) June 20, 2020

Sucks for him, but yea I'm past the point of remorse for these type of idiots of flaunt the direction science is telling us to follow.

I honestly do not have one ounce of sympathy for someone who flaunts not wearing a mask then dies. IMO it is the same as driving drunk and killing yourself. Maybe worse since you can spread it to so many other people.

He was keeping this in his back pocket to distract from major news. Something like record economic contraction. He knows there's no congressional support for delaying an election.

When does he want to delay it to?

As of noon on 1/20/2021 he is no longer POTUS if he doesn't win an election, so.....

I find it perplexing that he wasn’t being treated by that demon semen doctor? Surely he was given hydroxychloroquine....

Surreal that you have 3 Presidents at John Lewis' funeral, all of whom who will speak and the current occupant of the White House can't be bothered.

Edward is the bureaucrat's bureaucrat.

His Twitter account doesn't tweet itself you know.



At least I think it doesn't.

I want to have sympathy but the blind ignorance makes it hard-I feel for his family and friends and I really really hope now that all those pictures of people around him/hugging him etc at the Tulsa rally get tested right now because most look younger than Cain and surely have a lot of life to live yet.

He's too busy working on the virus. Same reason why he couldn't throw out the first pitch of the Yankees game that he wasn't invited to.

I am . . . dismayed at the number of leftists on my twitter feed who keep pointing out that if there is no election then the Speaker of the House becomes President when Trump's term expires as some sort of failsafe.

They think that Trump will pull authoritarian tactics to cancel the election but will then meekly step aside for Pelsoi in January?

but the virus is going away, he will be right eventually after all. win win why try

I believe the idea is that the military will side with the actual President, who will be Pelosi in January if there is no election.

Does hydroxychloroquine work on reptilians like it does humans?

Define Bureaucrat though.

Not sure what this means? But okay.

You're gold man, just bright and shining gold.

You were born for the good ol' days of carbon paper and mimeograph machines. Your approach is just....how do you feel about TPS reports? No wait...you don't even need to answer. We already know. ;)

That's . . . dicey.

If you've got Trump and 51 GOP Senators and 5 SCOTUS Justices and a bunch of CBP Brownshirts all saying he's the President, then I don't think that the military will take action that looks like deposing him, even if the military leadership does not agree.

Their job is to follow orders, not decide who to take them from.

If only he hadn't gotten tested then he'd still be alive.

You know we've been voting entirely by mail in Oregon since the last millennium?

It is true that this would be an entirely new and overwhelming process in most states. We had like 700K mail-in ballots in KY for the primaries. They're talking an estimated 1.65M ballot for the general and an inability to handle that kind of volume. I think the most obvious compromise is typical absentee voting plus 2-3 weeks of in-person voting - assuming you can find enough volunteers. I have no sympathy for people who complain about lines in election day when they've had 2 weeks to vote at their leisure.

If there is no election, then she wouldn't be speaker anymore either.

So Mitch McConnell wouldn't be a Senator either and Democrats would have control of the senate right?

So say hello to President Schumer?

Today:

1. A famous politician died of the pandemic that has raged out of control due to Trump's incompetence, specifically having caught it at a rally that people told the President not to do.

2. We had the worst economic quarter in American history.

3. The President talked about delaying the election.

Tomorrow:

4 our of 10 Americans will continue to approve of the job he is doing as President. Not "are Republicans." Not "don't like Biden either." Not "I vote third party (I am very smart)." They affirmatively approve of Trump.

My most pessimistic thoughts happen when I realize that even after Trump is gone, those 40% of Americans will still be with us. And they have political power disproportionate to their numbers. If voting were more representative of the actual voters, we could put that 40% at the kids table while the rest of us tried to figure things out and run the country. But between an unrepresentative Senate, an unrepresentative Electoral College, and rampant Gerrymandering, these people get to call the shots.

They gave us Trump. What else are they planning to give us?

Called it a couple of weeks ago...

Cain chose to be there and chose to come with out a mask. Cain chose to listen to Trump and not wear a mask (not that the mask would have helped prevent him getting it). Point is, he had a choice whether to attend or not and chose to go.


Regardless of who was president they would have been hit with this. Can't blame Trump, or anyone else who would have been in office. This was Terra Incognita.



I have a major issue with this. There are plenty of ways we could mitigate the risk of transmission. While not a fan of mail in voting, there are plenty of facilities that should be open that could be used to space people out (i.e. high schools may not be occupied at all, can use the whole school, etc.). Security becomes an issue, but one that should be easier to over come




A bigger problem than unproportional voting is the over 40% of the voting population that did not vote. Most of the other items revolving around voting are degrees of error vs. the 40% that simply do not take the time to vote.

With 40% of the voting population not being motivated by the two major parties to get out and vote, that provides enough room for a new party to have an outright majority if they could find the right issues (I realize this is not a monolithic bloc, but assuming roughly 50/50 split among voters between the parties 40 > 30 > 30).

Most of them I hope are neutralized by the virus they thought was a hoax. With the crushing unemployment, most of them will be suckling the government teat that their own Republicans will be shutting off.

Trump was/is a failure. He has effectively destroyed the Republican party to make it his own. Certain people on this board were hoping for this wanton destruction, never mind the country, plus our enemies, "they are the fuck you I got mine group", that's all conservatives are anymore anyway.

I see the ones gleefully cackling on the disintegration of a stable government to be filled with a vacuum of police state controls. They don't care because they are white foremost, and secondly they think they have an income that protects them (it doesn't). If you aren't the 1%, you are garbage.

Pompeo just said it's up to the Justice Department to deem whether Trump is right and I heard that ugly fuck Barr yesterday chuckle and deflect and mirror Trump's disdain for mail in voting. They are setting up the coup.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses.

I just DO NOT GET people who don't vote. Like, in the same way I don't get people who dislike ice cream.

I obsess over 538. I am WAY too into this stuff.

How can someone just not care? Not even in a "it's your duty as a citizen" way. Just in the "isn't this interesting? Don't you want to be a part of it?" way.

I think it would actually go to the longest tenured senator, so Leahy.

As someone who didn't really care before Trump, it is very easy to ignore it all and just enjoy life.

I think vote by mail was the right idea, but it would take planning and funding. Since we decided not to do that, the next best option is expanded early voting. The problem is that the GOP is committed to reducing the number of voters that might vote Dem, so we won't do that either.

Everything will be piecemeal. There will be all sorts of complications. We won't have an accurate count for weeks. We will run the risk of GOP state legislatures not certifying their results.

I had to look it up. But the Senate president pro tempore would be Chuck Grassley right now. I think congressman take office before the president does so the senate could elect a new person before Trump's term runs out.

Something is happening here and I'm not sure what but er, okay.

Yes, I read that in a prior discussion.

So you think the processes that we have for OR is satisfactory on a nation-wide basis? You think the processes we currently have for absentee ballot can scale up to 80-90% of the population?

She does not think America is what it is advertised to be. If you are wealthy and highly educated and white perhaps it is a good deal to come here. She is Asian and had a college degree but she feels racism and nativism are a big problem for emigrants even from advanced countries like her origin (South Korea). She admits her country of origin is not perfect but if she was not married to me she would return there. Look for example at how well they handled Covid. She also thinks we are trending in the wrong direction and Trump is bit a symptom of a bigger problem.
YMMV as a immigrant. Land of opportunity for some but not all.

Then why the need for all the fucking guns? No fear my ass.

Great speech by Obama at the Lewis funeral.

Obama is such an amazing speaker. Sometimes we forget.

Pelosi also gave an amazing speech. Clinton looks diminished and Bush's was ok.

I get it. It cracks me up with people that bitch and moan about it, then you ask, "Who did you vote for?"

"Oh its all rigged."
"My vote won't matter."
"I didn't have the time."

If you didn't care enough to do it, don't bitch. Hell, for those throwing their votes away, if those 40% that didn't vote voted for the third party, suddenly that vote is important.

EDIT: Typed this on a conf call, forgot to mention those voting 3rd party are not throwing their votes away (I think I am 50/50 3rd party vs 2 big parties in my elections) that is a common refrain from people "If you vote for a 3rd party, you're throwing your vote away" or "it's a vote for X candidate"

Obama is reading FOFC... talking now about people saying "my vote doesn't matter".

Thanks for her POV.

Can't disagree with much of that. And I think the people who think they're insulated because they're white or highly educated are going to be in for a rude awakening in the coming couple of decades.

SI

Care to elaborate? Not disagreeing, just curious what you are referring to.

Are there countries with better reputations for welcoming immigrants, particularly those from minority races? My quick Google research says European countries aren't exactly the shining positive example of this relative to the U.S. in terms of attitudes and available opportunities.

How do black and other minority immigrants do in South Korea?

This has always been the overriding long term problem with the administration. Trump is a walking, talking dumpster fire who flouts dorms, destroys systems, and does long term damage with no thoughts to the consequences.

But maybe worse than that is that he's a symptom, not a cause. He didn't get put in power by a fluke. Sure, Hillary was a bad candidate. But not like an awful, totally un-electable candidate. And Trump won by only a slim margin, but that's after all of his self-inflicted wounds. And if there's not a giant once-a-century level pandemic leading to a Depression, he'd probably be the favorite to win the election. He has that locked in 35-40% of the population.

I've said it quite a few times (maybe not here as I was on hiatus) but the danger of this is, Trump, sure, but who comes after him. He broke down enough norms and systems to both send someone even worse after him and deliver a blueprint of just what you can do and get away with.

What happens if this is a repeat of the Great Depression. This isn't 1936 where FDR can roll to re-election. In 4 years, if the economy still sucks, the GOP will win in a rout. We've talked about it here - Mitch knows it and Mitch is already planning for it. And god know what ghoul they'll dig up to try and take over then. Trump's greatest asset is his teflon-ness but his weakness is his frequent mind-numbing incompetence*.

If you get someone more competent and more ruthless in amongst his zealots that are already filling all levels of politics, it can make the last 4 years look mild by comparison, which is pretty crazy to think about. They've shown they don't care who they are taking orders from- just give them access to the levers of power and they'll do whatever gets them more power. Competent governance won't be anywhere on the agenda.

SI

*Those two compliment each other more than a lot of people wanting to paint him as a simple buffoon. Part of his teflon-ness is his (moral) flexibility. If I want to say one thing and stick with it - there are huge benefits to that approach in efficiency but it also means I can be attacked for that specific position or, at least chipped away at from the sides. If you don't know what he's going to say on a topic from one day to the next, it makes him a lot harder to pin down. If you ask him a question, you can't really gotcha someone who has, at one time, said 10 different answers to the same question on many different parts of the spectrum of answers from left to right to batshit insane (just, joking of course, but not really; or was he?).

I guess my above response mostly answer this. I think we've been moving into an era more akin to the start of the 20th century for a while. Middle class and upper middle class jobs will continue to go away to feed the upper class. Power will be more and more consolidated in the hands of those with resources. And the considerations of the masses will matter less and less - there will be far fewer people with means and we've shown that one of the go-to tools is to play on racial division to distract from classism. So even being white, there's going to be fewer "good jobs" to go around. That means the education matters less and we've seen the strong anti-intellectual streak that's been building for a long time during this pandemic.

SI

I can't speak specifically to South Korea but I don't think many places are. However, if you're an individual, you're not measuring things on a relativistic scale. You just want to know "how do people treat me"? If you're billing as a "land of opportunity" and the realistic rating would be "well, they're a 3/10 while other places are 2/10", it still sucks. Especially if staying at home would be 5/10 (but, hey, I heard this America place is supposed to be pretty good so that's better than a 50/50 shot at home).

We've seen nationalism on the rise around the world so I just think that, generally, the world is going to be less welcoming in general to people right now and the foreseeable future. In the "best of times", things are hard. The EU loses a key member. Russia can take part of Ukraine. China's doing China things. The Middle East is a mess. And let's not even talk about Africa.

Now, when everyone is counting their resources more closely and dealing with crisis, it's going to be even worse. "We don't have enough to feed our own people - why are you coming here and taking our jobs?"

SI

This is very well said.

Just a wonderful day for schadenfreude.

The co-founder of conservative student group Turning Point USA, Bill Montgomery, has died from complications of the coronavirushttps://t.co/uvgMOEu6qU

— POLITICO (@politico) July 29, 2020

In general, non-white minorities don't do well in any Asian countries other than possibly ANZAC. There is more prejudice/bigotry, sexism and yes, ADL-racism in Asian countries than in the US (e.g. still blows my mind that Ghandhi was a ADL-racist).

However, Galaril did say she admitted "her country of origin is not perfect".

wow two in one day

Fair point but also many countries aren't bragging about how great a deal is it to come hear. I think we are moving (rapidly) back to many other countries that treat immigrants poorly.

I feel bad for not feeling bad for these guys. Maybe stop going against science for political reasons?

Well played, sir. Well played.

I'd say bragging about a place being welcoming and opportunistic is itself a positive thing, even if there's plenty to improve on. That kind of brag assumes that this is even a value worth striving for. I don't think that assumption is made as readily in most of the rest of the world.

Edit: As an example, I doubt many Trump supporters brag about the United States being a welcoming and opportunistic place for minority immigrants because that's certainly not an America they want. Whoever is on the more hopeful and optimistic side about that being a part of America at all has to necessarily have an entirely different perspective that this is a national value worth striving for.

I am with you on not feeling bad for Cain and his horrible choices but to the people openly mocking him and making jokes, fucking heartless. Just shows the complete lack of empathy people have nowadays because you know blue team vs. red team! It's really sad.

I feel bad for them, I don’t want any of them to get sick.

I want them to stop playing games and stop trying to politicize a global pandemic.

I want them to start being safe and keep their loved ones safe too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

You mean science vs. demon sperm? This has nothing to do with politics and those that keep trying to make it political vs. a matter of science are why we are in the current state we are in. All the while other countries sit there and laugh.

He's a piece of shit who supported heartless and cruel policies throughout his life. The end of his life he spent dedicated to spreading false health information that put others lives at risk.