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US Politics: compromising positions


DanteGabriel

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5 hours ago, Rorshach said:

Also, she dismissed the idea in a way that will irk Trump.

She simply couldn't find him worthy of the effort.

Glad someone else saw how her response was aimed at rankling Trump, not at democrats. She successfully baited him into proudly owning the shutdown, she might be able to bait him into demanding impeachment!

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56 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Right but you don't know that. The Feds, who had this undercover spin operation going for a year, didn't indict her.. So it's being assumed and implied Trump is rubbing shoulders with a sex trafficker which is the point I'm making. She's selling influence which every former Trump acquaintance is but that doesn't have anything to do with the former ownership of the spa in question.

It's my understanding that her husband still owns, or at least operates, the original (and largest) spa location. So I would assume she was at the very least very much aware of what was happening there; especially the sex work/trafficking (still unclear which) started while she was still the owner.

 

In other news, Andrew Yang (no relation to the spa owner) has qualified for the Democratic nomination debate stage. I had no idea who he was until yesterday, but he's gotten over 65,000 donors, with over 200 donors from at least 20 different states, and that qualifies him. His main policy platform is introducing a universal basic income of $1,000/month, but he seems to have a huge number of policy papers on his website which support pretty standard Democratic positions these days (single payer health insurance, a carbon tax and green new deal, etc.). However, he is apparently quite popular among some of the more troll-y alt-right folks (like on 4chan) for some unknown reason (he was a guest on Joe Rogan's podcast, which boosted his visibility). That makes me suspicious even though he's publicly denounced any and all alt-right support.

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7 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah I know of him almost solely as the UBI guy.

I do agree with the basic premise that automation is a serious issue that will have societal ramifications we are entirely unprepared for; maybe UBI is the way forward, though I don't know if his VAT proposal is the best pay-for. If he can get that idea more into the mainstream, I'd call his candidacy a win.

Not sure about anything beyond that though. I just read the Vox article on him and he has a couple more "out there" ideas beyond just the mainstream Democratic ones. Also, he literally wants his infrastructure plan to have a workforce called "the Legion of Builders and Destroyers." So that's a thing.

Either way, he'll have his chance to make his case on the televised debate stage; at the least the first one.

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37 minutes ago, Fez said:

Either way, he'll have his chance to make his case on the televised debate stage; at the least the first one.

He was on the National Debate Team in 1992. He says that if he gets on the debate stage he will deliver. 

 

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I have listened to a number of commentators about Pelosi’s impeachment advice and they made some good points.

First of all, everyone is waiting for the Mueller report to come down and many people believe there will be nothing in it to justify impeachment, especially regarding a direct Trump/Russia link. By coming out before the report she cannot be accused of reacting to the report, whether the report goes the way you want or not. 

On the other hand, she has given everyone free rein to to talk about Trump however they want to their constituents, with the ability to blame leadership for not going with impeachment. She can handle taking blame.

She still got under Trump’s skin.

She left the door wide open by saying ‘not now’.

She’s damn smart, IMO.

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I’m just shocked—and not Casablanca shocked, legit shocked—that any of the behavior of getting idiot rich kids into college was remotely illegal. All of that stuff is so common and in plain view I always assumed the behaviors had been made a ok legal centuries ago. 

Fifteen years ago it was merely a teensy long forgotten “scandal” when the Walmart heiress at USC paid her roommate to do all her course work, but if someone paid me $50,000 a course to do their work I’d have done it too!

but this parent and institution behavior starts with private schools that cater to the every whim of the parents but that don’t actually teach their brats anything. Private school bribery is the gateway drug leading to this current college scandal. And once they’re hooked on easy kindergarten bribery they keep coming back for more, it’s easy it works and it feels good, why should they stop.

But don’t worry all, these children  of bribery will “graduate” these elite institutions, be placed in a junior executive position immediately, work less than four hours a week and then fail their way up the ladder with regular promotions.

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18 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I’m just shocked—and not Casablanca shocked, legit shocked—that any of the behavior of getting idiot rich kids into college was remotely illegal. All of that stuff is so common and in plain view I always assumed the behaviors had been made a ok legal centuries ago. 

Fifteen years ago it was merely a teensy long forgotten “scandal” when the Walmart heiress at USC paid her roommate to do all her course work, but if someone paid me $50,000 a course to do their work I’d have done it too!

but this parent and institution behavior starts with private schools that cater to the every whim of the parents but that don’t actually teach their brats anything. Private school bribery is the gateway drug leading to this current college scandal. And once they’re hooked on easy kindergarten bribery they keep coming back for more, it’s easy it works and it feels good, why should they stop.

But don’t worry all, these children  of bribery will “graduate” these elite institutions, be placed in a junior executive position immediately, work less than four hours a week and then fail their way up the ladder with regular promotions.

Yea, like you, I didn’t know you couldn’t just cut a check to the dean of admissions and call it a day.  

The thing I found most galling about this is that these are people who are already set for life as the offspring of rich people.  It will matter very little for them if they go to USC or to Fresno St, they are already ahead of the game.  I don’t get why these parents couldn’t have just found one of the thousands of small private liberal arts colleges where if you got the cash you can go.  This is undergrad we are talking about, do well just about anywhere and you can translate that into bigger and better things.  Do really well at small liberal arts school, you can go to grad school at Yale.  Hell you can transfer from a community college almost anywhere after 2 years if you have the grades.  Instead these people are dropping half a mil on a scam for a specific school?  It’s not just gross, privileged behavior.  Its also, like, really fucking stupid.

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28 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I’m just shocked—and not Casablanca shocked, legit shocked—that any of the behavior of getting idiot rich kids into college was remotely illegal. All of that stuff is so common and in plain view I always assumed the behaviors had been made a ok legal centuries ago. 

The thing is, there's the regular sort of corruption (donating endowments to the school, setting up no-show volunteer opportunities to inflate application resumes, pressuring schools to consider parent alumnus as an additional criteria for acceptance, etc.) and then there's straight-up bribing people in secret. The former is out there in the open, everyone sees it and it's even considered prestigious at times, and it allows the rich to know what level of corruption is currently needed to succeed. But the later is secretive and harms the parents doing the regular corruption only, by not letting them have full information about what's needed to get their kids enrolled.

That's why stuff like this is illegal, it harms other rich people and hinders the regular corruption (which is so much more lucrative for the schools than this private stuff that goes to directly to individuals).

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3 minutes ago, S John said:

Yea, like you, I didn’t know you couldn’t just cut a check to the dean of admissions and call it a day.  

The thing I found most galling about this is that these are people who are already set for life as the offspring of rich people.  It will matter very little for them if they go to USC or to Fresno St, they are already ahead of the game.  I don’t get why these parents couldn’t have just found one of the thousands of small private liberal arts colleges where if you got the cash you can go.  This is undergrad we are talking about, do well just about anywhere and you can translate that into bigger and better things.  Do really well at small liberal arts school, you can go to grad school at Yale.  Hell you can transfer from a community college almost anywhere after 2 years if you have the grades.  Instead these people are dropping half a mil on a scam for a specific school?  It’s not just gross, privileged behavior.  Its also, like, really fucking stupid.

Going to Stanford or Yale is more about forming the network of future power players and being part of it. The parents of these children of privilege want  their kids to be part of that network, and know that plunking down that half mil is an investment in their future. The super rich and famous dont have to do this, Jeff Bezo's kid will go wherever they want because every school will want Jeff Bezos to come around their school so they can hit him up for their endowment. 

The rich and privileged arent going to send their kid to Fresno State or anything close to it. They need to go to Stanford or USC so they can network with their peers. 

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9 minutes ago, S John said:

Yea, like you, I didn’t know you couldn’t just cut a check to the dean of admissions and call it a day.  

The thing I found most galling about this is that these are people who are already set for life as the offspring of rich people.  It will matter very little for them if they go to USC or to Fresno St, they are already ahead of the game.  I don’t get why these parents couldn’t have just found one of the thousands of small private liberal arts colleges where if you got the cash you can go.  This is undergrad we are talking about, do well just about anywhere and you can translate that into bigger and better things.  Do really well at small liberal arts school, you can go to grad school at Yale.  Hell you can transfer from a community college almost anywhere after 2 years if you have the grades.  Instead these people are dropping half a mil on a scam for a specific school?  It’s not just gross, privileged behavior.  Its also, like, really fucking stupid.

Because neither the kid nor the parents are interested in academics of transferring or graduating from a less prestigious place, they’re interested in what the kid wants (which must be indulged no matter what) and in the relative peer group status of where their kid is attending as well as the elite amenities reserved for wealthy attendees.

also there’s a Simpson’s quote somewhere about how a 300 SAT score requires building an international airport for Yale to accept Burns kid, “Yale could really use an international airport!”

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I like that some of these prestigious schools include...University of Texas. 

I mean, okay, doing this for Harvard I get. For USC? Maybe, okay. But...UT? It's a fine school, but I don't know why you need to bribe someone to make it seem like you're going to be a water polo player. 

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18 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I like that some of these prestigious schools include...University of Texas. 

I mean, okay, doing this for Harvard I get. For USC? Maybe, okay. But...UT? It's a fine school, but I don't know why you need to bribe someone to make it seem like you're going to be a water polo player. 

Definitely not as prestigious as an Ivy but it’s pretty hard to get into.  Flagship school of a state of 28 million.  I think if you are in the top 10% (or maybe it’s changed to 7%) of your high school class in Texas you can get into UT, but for everyone else you’re pretty much SOL, and with so many people in the state that adds up to a lot of disappointed wannabe Longhorns.  

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2 minutes ago, S John said:

Definitely not as prestigious as an Ivy but it’s pretty hard to get into.  Flagship school of a state of 28 million.  I think if you are in the top 10% (or maybe it’s changed to 7%) of your high school class in Texas you can get into UT, but for everyone else you’re pretty much SOL, and with so many people in the state that adds up to a lot of disappointed wannabe Longhorns.  

Okay, sure - but even it being hard to get into I don't see why it's particularly special to warrant spending half a million and actually committing fraud. When you're doing that, you really need to rethink your life. 

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3 hours ago, lokisnow said:

Fifteen years ago it was merely a teensy long forgotten “scandal” when the Walmart heiress at USC paid her roommate to do all her course work, but if someone paid me $50,000 a course to do their work I’d have done it too!

I am quite clearly on the wrong side of the academic industry.  If anyone knows any rich people that are looking, please pm me.

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Okay, sure - but even it being hard to get into I don't see why it's particularly special to warrant spending half a million and actually committing fraud. When you're doing that, you really need to rethink your life. 

Alumni networks I guess? Family tradition? I mean, it was a desired enough school that Becky with the Bad Grades went all the way to the Supreme Court for it.

I can see a line between normal college admissions corruption and what's been going on here. It's one thing to buy a building or make a big donation -- at least the school and larger student body will see some benefits. These lazy overprivileged affluenza cases had people taking tests for them and faking athletic scholarships for them.

Full disclosure: my brother is currently greasing the wheels for his son (who is nine) to get into his prestigious alma mater. But he's doing it by endowing a scholarship for non-wealthy international kids to be able to go to the school. I think that's substantively different from bribing admissions officers or cheating on tests.

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2 hours ago, S John said:

Yea, like you, I didn’t know you couldn’t just cut a check to the dean of admissions and call it a day.  

The thing I found most galling about this is that these are people who are already set for life as the offspring of rich people.  It will matter very little for them if they go to USC or to Fresno St, they are already ahead of the game.  I don’t get why these parents couldn’t have just found one of the thousands of small private liberal arts colleges where if you got the cash you can go.  This is undergrad we are talking about, do well just about anywhere and you can translate that into bigger and better things.  Do really well at small liberal arts school, you can go to grad school at Yale.  Hell you can transfer from a community college almost anywhere after 2 years if you have the grades.  Instead these people are dropping half a mil on a scam for a specific school?  It’s not just gross, privileged behavior.  Its also, like, really fucking stupid.

Well the really fucking stupid part seems to be genetic in that junior could not get in on his/her own. Plus this has just put another nail in the IQ as a determinant of success theory. 

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3 hours ago, Fez said:

That's why stuff like this is illegal, it harms other rich people and hinders the regular corruption (which is so much more lucrative for the schools than this private stuff that goes to directly to individuals).

Yes, this is at the heart of it. It's also crass: it's not rich people openly buying their way in and it's not everyone else trying to check off the right boxes to get in on merit, it's rich people buying false reports to look like the best of the meritorious. Would you want your children going to school with the offspring of such vulgarians?

3 hours ago, Frog Eater said:

The rich and privileged arent going to send their kid to Fresno State or anything close to it. They need to go to Stanford or USC so they can network with their peers. 

I'm not sure that they do. Of course, such networking is better at the Ivy League or its West Coast counterparts, but there are plenty of schools for rich kids who are... shall we say, not into academics to go -- small liberal arts schools, large and medium sized expensive private schools which don't offer much in the way of financial aid -- if you can afford them, there plenty of options and many of them are willing to let people in openly for the half million that these people spent on falsification.

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