Jump to content

US Politics: Get Tested or Get Bested


Tywin Manderly

Recommended Posts

53 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Who is this Coco you speak of?

TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER!!!!

Summer child.  He was a respected though seldom agreed with poster back when you were still popping zits on your funny face and jacking off to the lingerie section of the Sears catalog.

2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

And about the cuts to Medicaid comment - iirc, everyone said Trump's tax cuts seemed to specifically include provisions that would cut tax income to blue states. New York was hit hard, wasn't it? Please, correct if I'm wrong, and blue states did not lose revenue from taxation.

 

Meant to respond this last time, but again, box wine. 

That round of tax cuts limited the state and local taxes (aka SALT) deduction to 10k.  That is, state and local taxes are only now deductible up to $10,000, where previously you typically paid no federal tax on any amount of payments to the state or local govt (absent maybe perhaps AMT and other sorts of more fringe cases).  The primary schedule A (itemized) deduction being typically local real estate taxes, charity, and mortgage interest deductions (along with relatively high out of pocket medical expenses even for the US), this meant that if you had a lot of mortgage interest in a moderate to high tax district, you (to use the language of those that talk about ordinary business deductions for oil companies as tax subsidies) used to get a subsidy on your federal income taxes if you paid a lot of mortgage interest and/or local property taxes that then got limited at 10k.  But other than perhaps increasing the gross amount of income that flowed through to your state return, that had nothing to do with what the state and local jurisdictions charged you for taxes.

Note that for most middle income and lower income people, the standard deduction increased at the same time, so that it more often became pointless to bother with Schedule A regardless, and those people ended up showing less taxable income, at a lower marginal rate.  (Despite all of the articles trying to argue the contrary.  Lies, damned lies, and the democrat media complex).

The actual issue was that taxes went UP for high income blue zip codes on the whole.  State and local taxes weren't reduced at all.  (In fact, if I understand the interplay of both systems in CT, where I live, if your net federal goes up because of the SALT limitation, the taxable amount that the state return starts at also goes up!).

It was mostly a case of people asking for more government, paying for it. 

Personally, in the first year of that limitation, I got hit slightly on the SALT limitation, but being self employed, I think I got a larger benefit from some other tax wrinkles to compensate.  Though I live in a fairly modest 2 bedroom condo worth less than $150k in an area where $500k to $1m houses are, while not the majority, not at all uncommon.  Sustainability FTW!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

Summer child.  He was a respected though seldom agreed with poster back when you were still popping zits on your funny face and jacking off to the lingerie section of the Sears catalog.

Never really got zits on my face outside of football season, and what's a Sears catalog? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Never really got zits on my face outside of football season, and what's a Sears catalog? 

long ago, in the days before Al Gore invented the Internet, the Sears Catalog was a thick, glossy book listing Sear's entire inventory that would appear a couple times a year.  Big even for those of us living way out in the sticks.  Would be carefully inspected and pondered for days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

long ago, in the days before Al Gore invented the Internet, the Sears Catalog was a thick, glossy book listing Sear's entire inventory that would appear a couple times a year.  Big even for those of us living way out in the sticks.  Would be carefully inspected and pondered for days.

My mom used to get those. They had some weird shit in them. One time she wanted to buy this self-ironing device, but my pops wasn't having it. 

Also, needs to be pointed out. We didn't own an iron or a board. So it's not like she was looking to save herself some work, just back then toys for women were things like vacuums and hair rollers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

You have to understand, if a science teacher in America did that, they'd be run from the profession for espousing anti-Christian messages. How this would relate to that? I have no idea. But it would happen.

Not true. We talk exponential growth in my HS  bacteria unit.

Also most Christians are pro science. Only evagelicals are not. But they scream the loudest so thats who the media listens to. It also gives great comfort to Lefties to think all Christians are evangelicals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Also, needs to be pointed out. We didn't own an iron or a board. So it's not like she was looking to save herself some work, just back then toys for women were things like vacuums and hair rollers.

They weren't gifted detachable shower heads. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How did this this bigsty get himself so filled with fertilizer he could fertilize an entire county of corn all by himself?  Must watch fnoose 24/7 while drinking kool-aid.

How did this country's health care get so broken? Decades of insurance companies' policies to gouge, not insure, decades of privatization of hospitals for profit, not health care, decades of medical school so expensive nobody wanted to even think of doing general medicine, but only the really high ticket specialties including cosmetic surgery, decades of cutting public health budgets for everything from treating the mentally ill to the homeless, while insuring housing keeps sky rocketing. O on and on and on.  Its decades of treating health care is another resource to plunder, rather than to keep the nation healthy, dealing with health care as crisis rather than as public good that benefits us all.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

My mom used to get those. They had some weird shit in them. One time she wanted to buy this self-ironing device, but my pops wasn't having it. 

Also, needs to be pointed out. We didn't own an iron or a board. So it's not like she was looking to save herself some work, just back then toys for women were things like vacuums and hair rollers.

Possibly your mom had proclivities you would never have thought to consider?  I mean you seem so normal... ;) 

But seriously I thought a Point Break reference would just get a chuckle or two and move on, not any sort of side thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

long ago, in the days before Al Gore invented the Internet, the Sears Catalog was a thick, glossy book listing Sear's entire inventory that would appear a couple times a year.  Big even for those of us living way out in the sticks.  Would be carefully inspected and pondered for days.

Man, I remember picking out my Christmas wish list for my letter to Santa out of the Sears catalog.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, Freshwater Spartan said:

Not true. We talk exponential growth in my HS  bacteria unit.

Also most Christians are pro science. Only evagelicals are not. But they scream the loudest so thats who the media listens to. It also gives great comfort to Lefties to think all Christians are evangelicals.

Not true. I worked in a small conservative, very religious town, and the Methodist core of that town ran a science teacher off for getting too close to evolution. Absolutely science is an endangered subject in this country.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

@Mlle. Zabzie,

Escape from New York City seems to have been a wise decision.  

A classic. Not my favorite Carpenter movie, but a classic. And better than the escape from LA sequel. If you ever wondered what the next lockdown location was gonna be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A possible ray of hope.  I do wonder if Trump will try to kill it, as more tests = more verified CV cases = Trump looking bad, though:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-game-changer-fda-authorizes-abbott-labs-portable-5-minute-coronavirus-test-the-size-of-a-toaster/ar-BB11PVCI?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580&fbclid=IwAR2C__M75v3ADBkTOjd52ik08ka01yzALPJ3d-wafXKne-ztczfRiSREZsQ

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued Emergency Use Authorization to Illinois-based medical device maker Abbott Labs on Friday for a coronavirus test that delivers positive results in as little as five minutes and negative results in 13 minutes, the company said.

Bing COVID-19 tracker: Latest numbers by country and state

The company expects the tests to be available next week and expects to ramp up manufacturing to deliver 50,000 tests per day.

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

"I am pleased that the FDA authorized Abbott's point-of-care test yesterday. This is big news and will help get more of these tests out in the field rapidly," FDA Commissioner Steve Hahn said in a statement. "We know how important it is to get point-of-care tests out in the field quickly. These tests that can give results quickly can be a game changer in diagnosing COVID-19."

Get daily coronavirus updates in your inbox: Sign up for our newsletter now.

Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner, echoed Hahn's comments on Twitter, calling the development a "game changer." Gottlieb also said it’s "very likely" that we’ll see additional approvals of point-of-care diagnostics behind this one, extending testing to doctor offices across the U.S.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Not true. I worked in a small conservative, very religious town, and the Methodist core of that town ran a science teacher off for getting too close to evolution. Absolutely science is an endangered subject in this country.

Sounds like an isolated evangelical issue. Remember evangelicals only account for 25% of all Christians. Also note there are probably a quarter million high school sciences in the U.S.. There is probably a near equal number of middle school science teachers. Most stateshave adopted the NGSS standards or ones that are similar and they lots of natural selection and evolution in them.  You don't see mass layoffs for teaching the standards.

We teach exponential growth. We teach evolution.  And Christians don't care. Except of course for that small but vocal minority that Leftists love to talk about because it makes them feel better about themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just as your faith in Christ and its relevance toward society does not necessarily match up with some very vocal Christians, please don't group up all progressive people into a capitalized Leftists as if we all hate the devout. That's just as misleading as vocal anti-Christian rhetoric. I do not believe in a God, but I and millions of others who have progressive ideals do not group the entirety of Christianity with the Evangelicals who you're separating yourself from.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

Not true. I worked in a small conservative, very religious town, and the Methodist core of that town ran a science teacher off for getting too close to evolution. Absolutely science is an endangered subject in this country.

In some areas or even states, sure.  But it's a gross exaggeration to say evolution - and especially exponential growth - is taboo throughout the country.  There are plenty of localities/states that teach both without any controversy.  Really, on the topic of teaching exponential growth in high school, I'd say the main problem isn't that people are ideologically opposed to their children learning quadratics, but rather most kids aren't taught it these days because of the broad and endemic lack of quality education in most areas. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

A classic. Not my favorite Carpenter movie, but a classic. And better than the escape from LA sequel. If you ever wondered what the next lockdown location was gonna be.

I know I've seen it, but I can't remember it. It's the one with Snake, right?

Anyways his best films are either The Thing or They Live. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I know I've seen it, but I can't remember it. It's the one with Snake, right?

The only reason you're not familiar with Snake Plissken is because he doesn't want you to be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

The only reason you're not familiar with Snake Plissken is because he doesn't want you to be.

I thought that was the name. Still can't recall the second half of the film.

Currently watching 1917 :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

I think you're worried too much.  More testing also means more ability to have Easter gatherings and right now the US is almost on par with Germany as far as deaths per 1000, and not near Italy or Iran.  More testing means faster chance of ending shut downs, at least regionally.  Total positive tests over the full population is a far more meaningful stat that total positives over some symptomatic subgroup. 

I did read something that gorillas are susceptible to Covid19.  Hopefully they start just showing Trump reruns on the gorilla channel or who knows what he'll do.

 And luckily there are about as many new infections in China as there are gays in Iran, so great job Xi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...