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Supercar Gautier posted:The realist in me says "this could be an outlier, don't pop the champagne yet". Remember how Obama out performed the polls in 2012? Yeah, that was with Romney running a reasonable ground game that just had a giant hiccup due to technological idiocy. This time the Republicans are doing as little ground game as is physically possible. Like the only way to do less is to indulge in hypothetical intellectual exercises that rest wholly in the theoretical realm.j  is going to outperform the gently caress out of the polls.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:25
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fishmech posted:Nah, it was just a psychosomatic sort of thing. He basically freaked himself out into being mute, although a proper doctor wouldn't phrase it that way. Usually that thing only happens to people who've been in situations of extreme stress, but that dude was living a pampered life when it happened. 
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Oct 26, 2016 00:25
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Josef bugman posted:What happened to the three amigos? I know about Schumer a bit now, but they sound like the most (as it were) loving 90's era democrats you could imagine. Very much still in Reagan's shadow. Feinstein is still kicking around, Lieberman retired (allahu akbar), and Schumer has been positioning himself to take over the party in the senate. I can only hope the left wing of the party revolts and nominates someone else, and then Schumer kills himself in shame.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:28
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Feinstein isn't up for re-election this year. Barbara Boxer, who is an actually left-wing democrat is retiring this year, and we have a double blue ballot for her replacement.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:28
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CannonFodder posted:Are you going to Hillary and Michelle's event Thursday? I am not, because I'll be on the road at an advocacy meeting in Burlington. For free.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:29
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eviltastic posted:Would you be subject to US withholding taxes if you were employed by a local business? Seems weird that there'd be disparate treatment. The way it was phrased was as a flat 15% i pulled a stub from when I was making ~30k a year and I had a 17% effective tax rate on federal taxes, I guess if you have a bunch of dependents you would pay a lower rate
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Oct 26, 2016 00:29
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Josef bugman posted:Nope. But it keeps a track of the taxes we have to pay, just not any we'd get back. Plus I am not sure that charities are tax deductible under a certain amount. Our income tax laws are absurdly complex. Employers generally have to take out medicare and social security taxes for us and send it to the government, but after that we essentially have to make a guess on what we think our federal income tax will be, divide that by the number of paychecks, and ask our employer to send that to the government each week. If you have no idea the employer will make a very conservative estimate and send what is likely going to be too much money to the feds. When its time to settle up the following April, the tax forms and the various deductions and exemptions and calculations are so stupidly complicated even for people with fairly simple situations, that we either need to buy a computer program that figures our taxes for us or pay an expert to do it. Its just not reasonable to print the forms and instructions to do it by hand on paper. Then either you find out you deserve a refund and ask for it, or you underpaid and pay whatever you owe, possibly with penalties if you severely underestimated your tax during the year.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:30
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Why do people like Feinstein, Schumer and (formerly) Lieberman stick to the Dems? There seems to have been so much change in the party over even the last 8 years and yet they sort of just stick around.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:33
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RevKrule posted:
This happened to me in 2014 with my mail-in ballot and i was so mad I refuse to do it again unless i won't be available on election day. it's dumb but I used to ask my parents for their stickers as a kid and they'd always ask me "did you vote? then no." I will not be denied any longer.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:32
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SamuraiFoochs posted:I am not, because I'll be on the road at an advocacy meeting in Burlington. For free.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:34
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Northjayhawk posted:Our income tax laws are absurdly complex. Employers generally have to take out medicare and social security taxes for us and send it to the government, but after that we essentially have to make a guess on what we think our federal income tax will be, divide that by the number of paychecks, and ask our employer to send that to the government each week. If you have no idea the employer will make a very conservative estimate and send what is likely going to be too much money to the feds. That seems absurdly complicated. I suppose it helps that I have two taxes "National Insurance" and "income tax" and that's about it. The rest is just included in my rent.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:34
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Instant Sunrise posted:Feinstein isn't up for re-election this year. Barbara Boxer, who is an actually left-wing democrat is retiring this year, and we have a double blue ballot for her replacement. that's being generous loretta sanchez is one of the last remaining members of the blue dog coalition
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Oct 26, 2016 00:35
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Josef bugman posted:Why do people like Feinstein, Schumer and (formerly) Lieberman stick to the Dems? There seems to have been so much change in the party over even the last 8 years and yet they sort of just stick around. 1) Because they're too far left (i.e. center-right) for Republicans, 2) and if they switched party affiliation they would immediately be destroyed by whichever Democrat ran against them Alec Bald Snatch posted:that's being generous Harris is going to crush her, though.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:35
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Northjayhawk posted:Our income tax laws are absurdly complex. Employers generally have to take out medicare and social security taxes for us and send it to the government, but after that we essentially have to make a guess on what we think our federal income tax will be, divide that by the number of paychecks, and ask our employer to send that to the government each week. If you have no idea the employer will make a very conservative estimate and send what is likely going to be too much money to the feds. I guess the accountant at my work who figures that poo poo out for us is really good at his job, or it's far easier to figure out if you are just taking the standard deduction because I wind up either getting back less than $20 or owing like a dollar in taxes every year vOv It's still ridiculous that I have even file when I owe a dollar
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Oct 26, 2016 00:35
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Josef bugman posted:Why do people like Feinstein, Schumer and (formerly) Lieberman stick to the Dems? There seems to have been so much change in the party over even the last 8 years and yet they sort of just stick around. Feinstein and Schumer are both socially liberal but in bed with the intelligence industrial complex and Wall Street respectively. They are also from blue states. In both cases I do think some of it has to do with the fact that in general Jewish people have a strong connection to the Democratic Party as well.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:34
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Josef bugman posted:Why do people like Feinstein, Schumer and (formerly) Lieberman stick to the Dems? There seems to have been so much change in the party over even the last 8 years and yet they sort of just stick around. Probably the fact that they're really well integrated into the party apparatus which gives them a lot of power, and they don't want to give that up or start all over again. Hell, Lieberman was literally a VP nominee, that's how close to the heart of the Democratic Party he was, and Feinstein and Schumer are probably two of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:34
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Supercar Gautier posted:The realist in me says "this could be an outlier, don't pop the champagne yet". That's a 15% swing from 2012. Trump would lose Alabama if that's a national swing. Charlz Guybon fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Oct 26, 2016 |
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Oct 26, 2016 00:36
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Alec Bald Snatch posted:that's being generous She's also going to lose bigly.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:36
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CannonFodder posted:Ah. Well, I hope the advocacy meeting goes well. It'll be a mess but thanks brother. I'm confident about the White House but am mildly Arzying about the Senate which is almost as big. 
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Oct 26, 2016 00:37
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Josef bugman posted:What happened to the three amigos? I know about Schumer a bit now, but they sound like the most (as it were) loving 90's era democrats you could imagine. Very much still in Reagan's shadow. Feinstein (CA) is still in the senate and yes she is absolutely a 90's Reagan democrat since she loves the NSA/mass surveillance/war/death penalty/copyright law and hates pot. Being from CA I have a huge loving hate boner for her and am really sad that Boxer is retiring instead of her this year. Schumer loving loves power, fame, and money and has access to all the money wall st throws at politicians. Also, a really old joke is that the most dangerous place to be in DC is between Schumer and a live camera. Lierberman was Gore's running mate in 2000, then took a really hard loving turn right to the point where there was a ton of speculation in 2008 about him also being the running mate for McCain since he endorsed him for president over Obama. After that he went independent and then retired in 2012.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:38
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TheBigAristotle posted:https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/791022440377782272 This election is forcing me to seriously reconsider my faith in the essential goodness of humanity.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:38
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Josef bugman posted:That seems absurdly complicated. I suppose it helps that I have two taxes "National Insurance" and "income tax" and that's about it. We grew up with this poo poo, so it seems normal to us and just one of those things, but we do seem to be weird compared to other countries. I'm not necessarily opposed to complex tax laws since complexity might lead to more fairness, but we are expected to do quite a bit of the work and calculations ourselves, and most people I know try their best to be accurate because we're scared of the IRS.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:39
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Josef bugman posted:Why do people like Feinstein, Schumer and (formerly) Lieberman stick to the Dems? There seems to have been so much change in the party over even the last 8 years and yet they sort of just stick around. because they've got seniority and plum committee seats
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Oct 26, 2016 00:40
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Eugene V. Dabs posted:Harris is going to crush her, though. i know, i was responding to the statement that there's two democrats on the ticket, which is only technically true
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Oct 26, 2016 00:41
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lozzle posted:She's also going to lose bigly. I wonder if bigly is going to get embedded in the vocabulary post-Trump, assuming there is a post-Trump.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:41
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GreyjoyBastard posted:I wonder if bigly is going to get embedded in the vocabulary post-Trump, assuming there is a post-Trump. Bigly is going to be the new Normalcy.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:42
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Hopefully when the Democrats lose the Senate in 2018 they count that as Schumer's complete turn and he never gets to be Majority Leader again.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:42
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Alec Bald Snatch posted:because they've got seniority and plum committee seats Thanks for this and the other replies guys, but what I was also kind of wondering was why the blue perfect hell are they still being run by democrats? I mean changing them up might be a nice idea. Of course that would require a stronger party apparatus and that may well end up being a bad thing. Also it's fascinating hear about these people. They are so much more interesting than our MP's.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:42
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The brain thing Adams had wasn't an injury, it was spasmodic dysphonia. Same kind of thing Diane Rehm has, but apparently a lot worse for him at the time. Gail Wynand posted:No. Which is why it's very dumb and easy to work around if you have the money for a good accountant. (Where I lived the local accountants charged 2K for a US tax return.) Looking into it, this appears to vary by treaty status. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/totalization-agreements Which would make a blanket rule for the self employed kinda weird. rscott posted:The way it was phrased was as a flat 15% I don't really know what to tell you other than that the self employment tax literally is the employer and employee share of Medicare and Social Security withholding taxes. Flat rate of 12.4% of net income for social security and 2.9% for Medicare, assuming nothing otherwise weird about the income. The employer side of it's deductible. It is distinct from other tax liabilities, like income tax. Your effective tax rate would include your share of withholding taxes (6.2%+1.45%) and income tax. If you were self employed, it would include the self employment tax ((6.2%+1.45%)*2) and income tax. eviltastic fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Oct 26, 2016 |
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Oct 26, 2016 00:43
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ToxicFrog posted:I'm in a situation where the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion does apply to me, so I don't owe any US taxes, but I still need to file a giant stack of tax and treasury forms every year. It's a gigantic pain in the rear end and the only reason I haven't renounced my citizenship already is that I travel to the US a few times a year for conferences, and I really don't feel like getting harassed by border security any more than I already do; I can't imagine that showing up as a "former US citizen" or whatever when they look me up would go over well with those power-tripping assholes. My boss was in a similar situation because of some weird peanut-value bonds she inherited from her grandmother - she literally couldn't sell them or give them away but they still accrued taxable interest. She ended up renouncing her citizenship to get away from the bureaucracy.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:44
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Gyges posted:Hopefully when the Democrats lose the Senate in 2018 they count that as Schumer's complete turn and he never gets to be Majority Leader again. This please.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:44
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Northjayhawk posted:We grew up with this poo poo, so it seems normal to us and just one of those things, but we do seem to be weird compared to other countries. I did briefly enjoy paying 5% income tax in Singapore but the sight of destitute elderly people scavenging for scrap on the streets in a developed country ensured I didn't enjoy it too much.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:44
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Alec Bald Snatch posted:i know, i was responding to the statement that there's two democrats on the ticket, which is only technically true I live in sanchez's district and yeah... The California GOP shot themselves in the face when they pushed for the top two primary system.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:46
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Equilibrium posted:This election is forcing me to seriously reconsider my faith in the essential goodness of humanity. I'm far beyond that point and well into the "burn it all down" stage. We need a "reverse" Armageddon where we knock an asteroid onto a collision course with earth. There is no fixing what we have got.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:45
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Josef bugman posted:Thanks for this and the other replies guys, but what I was also kind of wondering was why the blue perfect hell are they still being run by democrats? I mean changing them up might be a nice idea. Of course that would require a stronger party apparatus and that may well end up being a bad thing. what do you mean by "they"? the committees themselves or what, because the majority party is actually in charge of those and that's the republicans at the moment
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Oct 26, 2016 00:46
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Josef bugman posted:Thanks for this and the other replies guys, but what I was also kind of wondering was why the blue perfect hell are they still being run by democrats? I mean changing them up might be a nice idea. Of course that would require a stronger party apparatus and that may well end up being a bad thing. If the party tried to primary them, they could and probably would do a lot of damage. The current party is not far left enough to consider them a grave threat to their interests, and so Feinstein and Schumer will be tolerated until they finally are out of office. Alec Bald Snatch posted:what do you mean by "they"? the committees themselves or what, because the majority party is actually in charge of those and that's the republicans at the moment I think he meant in terms of supporting them in their elections.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:45
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Instant Sunrise posted:I live in sanchez's district and yeah... i think the ostensibly nonpartisan redistricting commission did more damage since the ca dems managed to game it pretty hard Eugene V. Dabs posted:I think he meant in terms of supporting them in their elections. well in that case yeah there's no way in hell they're gonna go after senior senators who raise tons of cash also you don't get to stick around that long without the party muckety-mucks being your pals anyway the only real exception to the buddy system is obama peeling off enough support in the run-up to 2008 to beat clinton Alec Bald Snatch fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Oct 26, 2016 |
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Oct 26, 2016 00:47
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Instant Sunrise posted:I live in sanchez's district and yeah... Wait are you serious? That wasn't a Democrat idea to gently caress the GOP over? They did it to themselves? Alec Bald Snatch posted:i think the ostensibly nonpartisan redistricting commission did more damage since the ca dems managed to game it pretty hard See above. lozzle fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Oct 26, 2016 |
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Oct 26, 2016 00:48
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TyrantWD posted:I'm far beyond that point and well into the "burn it all down" stage. We need a "reverse" Armageddon where we knock an asteroid onto a collision course with earth. There is no fixing what we have got. No, gently caress you, and gently caress all of the "Giant Meteor 2016" people. What a privileged loving thing to say.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:49
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Josef bugman posted:Thanks for this and the other replies guys, but what I was also kind of wondering was why the blue perfect hell are they still being run by democrats? I mean changing them up might be a nice idea. Of course that would require a stronger party apparatus and that may well end up being a bad thing. Our system is set up so that it is excessively difficult for anything other than a two party system to work. We don't have a system like in other countries where you vote for 5 or 6 different parties and then seats are awarded based on the share of the vote. Its winner take all here. This person vs that person, vs that person, pick one, plurality wins that seat. If you have two left of center parties and one right of center party, and they contested a senate seat in, hell lets even say its a blue state, say Washington and the two left-wing candidates together get 60% split evenly 30%/30%, the one right wing candidate would win that seat with their 40 and the other two parties get aced out even though combined they had more votes. Its more efficient for the two left of center candidates to come together and battle for the direction of the party internally or in primaries before the election to decide who gets to run against the right wing candidate. If sitting senators left their party and tried to run independent or a 3rd party, they would split the vote of their old party and just flat-out lose. Once in a blue moon you have the independent exception that proves the rule like Bernie, but Vermont is just weird. Northjayhawk fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Oct 26, 2016 |
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Oct 26, 2016 00:50
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