US Politics: Let's Arm All the Teachers! 30 Pieces of Silver to Shoot a Student!

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

I do think your joke could have used a little work in the humor department.

Under the Obama the Democrats lost 69 seats in the House and a number seats in the Senate.  Perhaps the Progressives were not paying attention  ? And then there is the fact that the majority of State Governors  are s Republican . And no I don't think Conservative really care a fig about the voters  but, the fact of the matter is the voters put them  control and that  tells me that they must have had some issues with Progressives and their programs, including  ACA which at the time was not popular with the voters.  And yes the I do have an issue or two about Trump Administrations  environmental stand. I do think global   warming is for real and something needs to be done namely, developing non fossil fuel alternatives  that are renewable.  But in the new cheap oil era , that seems less likely. 

As to the Tax plan, In the short term it will put money people pockets, make them happy and probably allow the Republicans to hold on to the Senate and the House come midterms  and yes due to decreased to decreased  revenue,  it will it  balloon the deficits and probably lead to serious  recession in a few years.

 

You mention the ACA. Yes, the Democratic Party took a beating over the ACA several years ago and Republicans were very successful in spewing bullshit about the ACA. For seven years they acted like they had something better, but they had no plan, and nonsense about “across state lines” is for knuckle heads. 

While the ACA was not perfect, Republicans were very successful in lying about it and of course got rewarded for it. I’ve never denied that the Republicans are very very good at spewing bullshit and getting believed, but that is something very different than coming up with actually good policies.

Also, I’d note, that since the Democrats took the beating over the ACA, support for the ACA has improved along with general support for universal healthcare. And I think the lesson here is that at times it may very well be worth taking an ass kicking in the short term, if it sets you up for a win in the long term, and it is something at liberals should keep in mind when they are advised by the professional centrist crowd to “moderate”. The passage of the ACA may very well have changed the entire trajectory of the health care debate in this country.

I’ve mentioned before on several threads that I think the conservative movement became very successful because conservatives were willing to stick to their guns and argue for their positions and ultimately move the country to the right. Liberals should think about doing the same. The goal here shouldn’t just about winning the next election, but shifting the debate back to the left. And you don’t do that by being wishy washy all the time because your always fretting about the next election.

[Shryke]

I think the recent repeal efforts showcase exactly how "unpopular" the ACA actually is.

Turns out, it's extremely popular except when compared to even more generous systems.

[Darth Richard II]

It probably also helped when people found out that the ACA and Obamacare were the same thing.

(oh god, my spellcheck accepts Obamacare as a legit word, kill me now)

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Shryke said:

I think the recent repeal efforts showcase exactly how "unpopular" the ACA actually is.

Turns out, it's extremely popular except when compared to even more generous systems.

This doesn't really address this particular point, but a lot of these calls for the Democrats to "moderate" goes back to the point you made about the perception that the Republicans are better at foreign policy and military stuff and economic management.

Dubya's disastrous invasion of Iraq should have ended the the idea that Republicans are better at military and foreign policy affairs.

The failure of the Bush Boom to materialize followed by ten years of conservative nonsense and the fact Republicans have never produced better economic growth, should have ended the idea that they are better economic managers.

And yet, despite all this, these perceptions still persist, unfortunately.

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

And yet, despite all this, these perceptions still persist, unfortunately.

These perceptions will always vary based on economic performance and which party is in the White House.  Unfortunately, I don't think that will ever change.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, dmc515 said:

These perceptions will always vary based on economic performance and which party is in the White House.  Unfortunately, I don't think that will ever change.

One Republican President, Reagan, had very strong growth about 1984 or so, and Republicans have been able to milk that baby for all it's worth for over 30 years now.

That's amazing.

[DMC]

Just now, OldGimletEye said:

One Republican President, Reagan, had very strong growth about 1984 or so, and Republicans have been able to milk that baby for all it's worth for over 30 years now.

That's amazing.

It's spiking the football.  I think you're a little harsh on Dems for being..well, whatever..pussies I guess, when it's really just a bunch of white people that don't want to vote for them, but this is something they could better.  Spike the damn football!

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, GAROVORKIN said:

I do think your joke could have used a little work in the humor department.

Under Obama, the Democrats lost 69 seats in the House and a number seats in the Senate.  Perhaps the Progressives were not paying attention  ? And then there is the fact that the majority of State Governors  are  Republican . And no I don't think Conservatives really care a fig about the voters  but, the fact of the matter is the voters put them  control and that  tells me that they must have had some issues with Progressives and their programs, including  ACA which at the time was not popular with the voters.  And yes the I do have an issue or two about Trump Administrations  environmental stand. I do think global   warming is for real and something needs to be done namely, developing non fossil fuel alternatives  that are renewable.  But in the new cheap oil era , that seems less likely. 

As to the Tax plan, In the short term it will put money people pockets, make them happy and probably allow the Republicans to hold on to the Senate and the House come midterms  and yes due to decreased revenue,  it will   balloon the deficits and probably lead to serious  recession in a few years.

 

Seriously, any interest in answering what you mean by Dems moving too far left?  Because you haven't answered that at all.

You mentioned the ACA being unpopular at the time (which has nothing to do with its 'progressiveness').  On the spectrum of healthcare policy in the developed world, it's hardly even a liberal policy.  It might be the very definition of a centrist solution.

The fact that the opposition party picks up seats in elections is also not an indication that the other party has swing too far in a direction.  

Ooh maybe we can have some other poster jump in and tell me, "larry, maybe you should consider both sides for a minute.  Maybe he DID actually answer that question- even if it seems like he didn't".  

 

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, dmc515 said:

It's spiking the football.  I think you're a little harsh on Dems for being..well, whatever..pussies I guess, when it's really just a bunch of white people that don't want to vote for them, but this is something they could better.  Spike the damn football!

I like the football analogy. As an old college lineman, I've run into my fair share of trash talkin' fools. And you deal with trash talkers in one of two ways. 1) Trash talk back, 2) or even better, clobber the trash talkin' fool just as soon as you get the chance.

[DMC]

Always preferred option 2.  Intellectually, of course.

[GAROVORKIN]

7 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Seriously, any interest in answering what you mean by Dems moving too far left?  Because you haven't answered that at all.

You mentioned the ACA being unpopular at the time (which has nothing to do with its 'progressiveness').  On the spectrum of healthcare policy in the developed world, it's hardly even a liberal policy.  It might be the very definition of a centrist solution.

The fact that the opposition party picks up seats in elections is also not an indication that the other party has swing too far in a direction.  

Ooh maybe we can have some other poster jump in and tell me, "larry, maybe you should consider both sides for a minute.  Maybe he DID actually answer that question- even if it seems like he didn't".  

 

  The basis for ACA was Romneycare which was implemented  in Massachusetts.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

  The basis for ACA was Romneycare which was implemented  in Massachusetts.

Remember a couple years back when Republicans claimed the ACA was a "job killer".

Turns out that was about as credible as the "skills gap" meme a few years back.

But, you know, sorry ass Republicans gonna sorry ass. That's what they do.

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

  The basis for ACA was Romneycare which was implemented  in Massachusetts.

Again, not answering the question.  But thanks for trying.

[Fragile Bird]

On ‎2‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 2:19 AM, lokisnow said:

I don’t think you’re really capable of properly scaling just how gargantuan the American farming capacity is. Particularly Kansas, Nebraska Missouri and Iowa. Sure fracking bad, so we lose five percent capacity for the areas contaminated, you still have 90% of those states perfectly capable. The limiting factors is the ability to fix nitrogen, rail capacity  to ship the crops out, and the status of the water table . 

Shit the governmwnt pays so many millions and millions of acres of perfectly good farmland to lie fallow every year (because we have too much of it and it’s much cheaper and better for the economy to pay farmers to do nothing then having them all race to the bottom competing over every last scrap of capacity) that it wouldn’t even take a season to activate additional capacity to deal with a catastrophe. 

90 % of the land in the United States is arable, which is pretty much as high as it gets, and compared to the other big continent sized countries it’s downright mind boggling. China has like 20% arable land, and five times the population and as a result, we feed them too. (It does help though that they really like to eat chicken feet and we really don’t, makes for a nice balance)

everybody loves saying industrial agriculture bad, but everyone likes spending 0% of their own labor and  less than 12% of their take home pay on food (instead of the historically typical 50%+ plus food acquisition related heavy labor).

 

Geez, I go off and spend the weekend having a life and no one answers this silliness?

The percentage of arable land in the USA is 16.9%, not fucking 90%, not far off of the world total of 11%. China is at 12.7%. While land use has seen big changes over the decades, the amount of cropland has been relatively stable since 1980 (the definition of arable land is much broader than just cropland). So no, the days of paying farmers not to farm are largely gone, relics of the Regan years. These days the government helps farmers so they won't get hooked on a single crop and do things like crop rotation instead. You'd better link an article that says millions and millions of acre are being left fallow and the farmers being paid off not to farm, and quotes real numbers. If the crop acres have been stable since 1980, I'd like to see where those millions of acres are.

And a decade of drought, like they saw in California, will take millions of acres out of circulation. There's a huge water issue in many agricultural states.

Hell, India's number is 52.6%, Germany's 34%, Hungary's is 48.7%, the Ukraine 57.1%. Canada's is a mere 4.8%.

60% of the world's arable land is in Africa, although some reports suggests 65% of that land might be too damaged for crops. That still leaves about 25% of the world's arable land in Africa. 

[Fragile Bird]

The US Supreme Court has declined to get involved in the DACA issue, at least for now.  They have just refused to hear an appeal of a lower court decision.

And meanwhile in Trumpland, apparently the Donald wants to appoint his former pilot, and the guy who ran Trump airlines for him, until it went bankrupt, the head of the FAA. Cuz he ran an airline, ya know.

[GAROVORKIN]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

The US Supreme Court has declined to get involved in the DACA issue, at least for now.  They have just refused to hear an appeal of a lower court decision.

And meanwhile in Trumpland, apparently the Donald wants to appoint his former pilot, and the guy who ran Trump airlines for him, until it went bankrupt, the head of the FAA. Cuz he ran an airline, ya know.

An excellent choice , his business experience makes him the right choice for this job .

And for the record , im being sarcastic 

 

[GAROVORKIN]

2 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Again, not answering the question.  But thanks for trying.

Actually now that I think about it,  I seem to reall that mandate health insurance was a Conservative notion , but then the Democrats thought it was a good idea.   I could be wrong . 

Of course, if you go  back  in history,   The first country to have a mandated healthcare set up was Germany during the time of  Otto Von Bismarck. He came up with as a means of countering the appeal of socialism. It was under his policy of Stealing the Socialist Thunder .  It sort of akin to how the Republicans and Democrats quashed  William Jennings  Bryant and the Progressive party . The other two parties adopted ideas put forward by the Progressive Party and thus rendered them politically moot.  

 

 

[TheKitttenGuard]

1 minute ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Actually now that I think about it,  I seem to reall that mandate health insurance was a Conservative notion , but then the Democrats thought it was a good idea.   I could be wrong . 

Bingo!

[Morpheus]

Trump says if he were at the school, he would have charged in even without a gun. LOfuckingL

 

[maarsen]

35 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

An excellent choice , his business experience makes him the right choice for this job .

And for the record , im being sarcastic 

 

Trump has four bankruptcies on his record, while his pilot only has one. I guess he can always strive to emulate his boss.