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Tatsuta Age posted:Boy I wish I was half as confident as posters in this thread that this election was in the bag, and not for Trump. Well they're going on actual real life recent election results, in swing states, and you're going on vibes. quote:Completely neglecting how Trump already WAS president, and very recently. You don't have to guess, you can just look at history! But America has nothing but goldfish brains so I think it's a lot less a sure thing for Biden than "look at how the past couple midterms went". You seem to be neglecting that Biden already was president, right now, having defeated Trump. Xombie fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Feb 9, 2024 |
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Feb 9, 2024 16:03
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volts5000 posted:I’m always keeping the post-2018 election results in my mind. That right there should be proof enough. But the vibes can be overwhelming. I’m taking my mom to the dentist and all I’ve heard is “Biden is so feeble! Do you see the way he walks! Just like my mom when she had dementia! The report said he didn’t even know what year it was! Makes you wonder who’s really running this country! It’s someone we didn’t even elect!” It sucks because I know there are more people like her who have been mainlining Fox News 24/7. It’s loving depressing. The thing is that it is indiscernible from the pre-2020 election. "Biden is old and dementia-riddled" was the entire argument against him, and he won anyway. Trump has since then tried to overthrow the government and might not even be allowed to run in several states because of it. It's not much of an argument to say that people will overlook Trump being ten times worse than he was before because Joe Biden got 5% older, when they apparently didn't actually care how old Joe Biden was the first time around. All the people that cared before and voted for him anyway, or voted for Trump because of it, or sat out, didn't get warmer on Trump since then. If there was a different candidate than Trump, maybe, but there isn't. It's the exact same election except Biden is maybe 5% worse and Trump is even more open about being a wannabe dictator. edit: typo Xombie fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Feb 9, 2024 |
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Feb 9, 2024 16:20
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Like most vices, banning gambling doesn't actually decrease gambling, it just makes it harder to tax. Legality is not the problem. The problem, as always, is the greed of the leagues (and particularly, the team owners) and broadcasters themselves, who are more than glad to take any amount of dollars to shove sports gambling down the throats of everyone. It is always within the purview of the government to ban advertising. But they won't, because they're on the take too.
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Feb 12, 2024 16:40
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This sounds like one of those libertarian "truisms" that isn't actually true in practice. I would be absolutely stunned if having a gambling app on everyone's phone didn't lead to massively increased gambling, for the same reason that caffeine addiction is a lot more common than opium addiction. There was already sports gambling on phones before sports gambling was legal, though. They just called it "daily fantasy sports". You can put anything on an app and skirt the law about it. But like all addictions, you can't be addicted unless you've actually participated. Simply being available isn't what gets people hooked. You have to convince them to try it. Which is where advertising comes in.
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Feb 12, 2024 16:49
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zoux posted:The fact that approximately 25% of all sports related content is now gambling related, while a lesser concern than gambling pathologies, loving sucks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Collegiate_Athletic_Association
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Feb 12, 2024 16:54
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Gambling establishments of all forms make money off of people who are under the delusion that they are better at gambling than they really are. Gamblers themselves are looking to purchase the fantasy of luck and easy prosperity. Math knowledge is not the problem. Even an expert at math is just going to be more enamored with the delusion. They actually know they're bad gamblers, but the thrill is what they want. Sports betting works especially well as a market because it's targeting people who already put personal emotional and financial stake in something that they actually have absolutely no control over: Sports fans. Xombie fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Feb 12, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 18:32
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Nucleic Acids posted:Biden’s age and cognitive status are not going to become less of an issue as time goes on. He is such a committed Zionist there is no reason to believe he will ever change course on the genocide in Gaza. His embracing of right wing policies on migration will not win him a single vote away from Donald Trump. Biden being old, supporting Israel, and proposing immigration control. All things that are different from 2020 in the following ways, where someone will vote for Trump instead:
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Mar 6, 2024 16:53
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zoux posted:One way to gauge the accuracy of the polls would be to look at Trump's predicted vote share in polling vs his actual vote share in primaries. I actually like gauging them based on their unprecedented post-integration support of the GOP by black voters. Or the fact that the poll is 100% "people who both pick up the phone for unlisted numbers and will have a conversation with the anonymous person on the other end". Xombie fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Mar 6, 2024 |
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Mar 6, 2024 16:55
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Nucleic Acids posted:These were dogs for him in 2020 and things have only worsened for him on all three ever since. "Biden will lose because of things he that didn't lose him an election the first time around and his opponent is still much worse on" isn't the stellar argument that you are imagining it is.
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Mar 6, 2024 16:59
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Nucleic Acids posted:He is older and at the very least looks and behaves more frail, is actively supporting a genocide, and has embraced a border policy that Donald Trump could not have gotten passed at the height of his popularity and Republican control of Congress. Being old, support for Israel, and right-center border policy. Three things that did not make him lose in 2020, where Trump is demonstrably worse. Repeating yourself and not addressing this fact doesn't make the fact go away.
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Mar 6, 2024 17:05
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Nucleic Acids posted:To quote another goon, saying things over and over again doesn’t make it true. Make what true? Polls aren't votes. quote:None that is argument in favor of what Biden is doing, I'm not arguing in favor of what Biden is doing. I'm pointing out that you're demonstrably wrong when saying that those three things can be expected to lose him an election. They were already the status quo for him in 2020 and for anyone who cares enough to dislike him for it, Trump is even worse. quote:and as especially regards his open support of genocide, is not helping him, as the Uncommitted votes in Michigan and Minnesota show. Biden won Michigan by 55,000 more votes than there are "uncommitted" votes, where Democrats *now* control every branch of government and both US Senate seats. He won Minnesota by 188,000 more votes than there were protest votes. There is, on top of this fact, no way to know, let alone confirm, that any of these protest voters voted at all in 2020. Nucleic Acids posted:Things like will only continue to be a problem for him as the election approaches. They weren't a problem for him when the last election approached.
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Mar 6, 2024 17:19
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Can't wait for the constant supercuts of J6 during every college football game commercial break here in Ohio.
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Mar 6, 2024 17:22
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tractor fanatic posted:Pretty funny to watch the Dems intentionally trash the youth vote ngl The very valuable 12-16 year old voting demographic.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:30
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tractor fanatic posted:TikTok is like 30% of US mobile users Please provide a venn diagram of US citizens who:
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Mar 13, 2024 16:35
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Potato Salad posted:tell me you haven't knocked on doors in the last 4 years without telling me you haven't knocked on doors in the last 4 years People are known for their steadfast lifelong loyalty to specific social media platforms, which is why social media platforms never fail or get replaced by other social media platforms.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:42
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Potato Salad posted:That doesn't seem relevant? You didn't even respond directly to anything I said, so "that's not relevant" doesn't work as a counter-argument.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:46
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:Can someone explain to me what the supposed rationale is for banning tiktok but not FB or twitter? (I'm asking earnestly, I don't know much about the topic) The US government can subpoena information from FB and Twitter. Theoretically the Chinese government can obtain information from TikTok, because ByteDance is a Chinese company.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:48
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Potato Salad posted:Forgive me, its more that I'm failing to see why "People are known for their steadfast lifelong loyalty to specific social media platforms, which is why social media platforms never fail or get replaced by other social media platforms." has anything to do with canvassing and discovering Tiktok has had a massive positive impact on young voter engagement and a better informed public. The part where it just gets replaced by the next social media platform that does the same thing, because TikTok is not the first social media platform in existence and wasn't birthed fully formed in a vacuum. My original point had nothing to do with the positive or negative impact TikTok has on voters. I was saying that no one is going to stop voting for Democrats just because they can't use TikTok.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:52
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Potato Salad posted:
TikTok isn't special. It's just current. MySpace, Vine, Snapchat, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, none of these were special in a way that didn't stop a future success by another social media company that led them to get trounced by the next big thing. Your argument is predicated on TikTok being banned and it not getting replaced by something even more popular. In the history of the internet, that would be a first.
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Mar 13, 2024 17:01
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I can't explain the phenomenon to you, nor shall I pretend to. You're telling me Tiktok isn't the first social media platform in existence, and I counter "well they did something right on this one," per its wild success and the side effect of being a great platform for allowing people to share the uncut realities of the American experience with each other.
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Potato Salad posted:Reread the part I underlined and you find why, today, in the current world, a certain bill passed. Then think about why they voted yes. It's current until it's not current and then it's replaced with whatever will be current. The platform isn't a zeitgeist, it's an addictive bit of programming. Nothing about it makes it irreplaceable.
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Mar 13, 2024 17:10
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PostNouveau posted:He hasn't done any rounds of loan forgiveness. His team trots out press releases every month about the number of loans forgiven, but they're all from the George W. Bush-era Pay-as-You-Earn program, that is contractually obligated to forgive loans if payments are made for 25 years, or the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (10 years). It's dumb for him to claim that's him forgiving loans. It's George W. Bush forgiving loans if it's anyone. This isn't true. First off, PSLF is a Bush-era program but PAYE/REPAYE is an Obama-era program from 2012. But then Biden replaced PAYE/REPAYE with SAVE. As someone who was/is on all of these programs, even though I can thank Bush for having my loans erased next year, I'm paying half on SAVE compared to what I was paying on REPAYE pre-pandemic. REPAYE was already half of what I was paying under Bush-era payment programs. On top of all this, Biden's consolidation moratorium allowed me to move my Navient loans into my federal loan, so that they qualified for a better interest rate and lower payments without resetting the clock on my PSLF. There's also the fact that, compared to an unnamed previous administration, Biden is actually forgiving loans under PSLF, so I can count on my years of chronically underpaid public service not being a waste. If Biden loses it's very much a crapshoot for me. DeVos lorded over a 99% denial rate for PSLF forgiveness. Xombie fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 2, 2024 18:57
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PostNouveau posted:Has the big number at the top gone away? Because that's what loan forgiveness means to everyone who will vote on it if he does it. My big number goes away if he wins and probably not if he loses. quote:I have not applied for SAVE because it's getting challenged in the court and I have no faith in them letting me back into PAYE when the psychos on the Supreme Court rule it unconstitutional. If they struck down SAVE it would literally just revert back to REPAYE, which again, was an Obama-era law.
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Apr 2, 2024 19:09
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PostNouveau posted:All I ever see on this is no one knows what will happen if it gets struck down. I'm right here telling you that SAVE is just REPAYE with new terms. If they rule that Biden can't change the terms of REPAYE, it just goes back to REPAYE, which is an actual law. quote:It's a pathetic administration. All they've got are excuses for half-measures that they can't even deliver. I did give you ways they've delivered for me, which suddenly weren't good enough for you once you were told Biden did them and not Bush. Xombie fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 2, 2024 23:41
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uPen posted:If we’re taking away rights from the workers to prevent a strike why not take rights away from the executives that caused the strike to accomplish the same goal? The employees were forced to not strike, the railroad wasn’t forced to do anything. Is the purpose of a strike to punish management, or to force management to the table and concede to demands of the workers? The fact is that the railway workers did get concessions, the railroad was forced to give them, and there is absolutely no guarantee that the union would have gotten significantly more had the strike occurred. It was, however, inevitable that there would have been economic pain on Americans had it occurred, which was the entire reason the federal government intervened at all. Xombie fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Apr 4, 2024 |
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Apr 4, 2024 19:12
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Tnega posted:Well, they kinda didn't, they eventually got 5 sick days, when they were looking for 15. They did ultimately agree to a contract, so that is evidence they got what they were willing to settle for, which is probably less than they could have gotten, were the administration willing to let them use all their bargaining tools legally. "Probably less" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this statement for something with zero evidence to back it up. There is no guarantee whatsoever that they would have gotten more with a strike than what they ended up getting. Strikes are not a "push to win" button for unions, which is exactly why they are used as a last resort. You need to step back from the romanticism of striking and realize that it's a situation where the strikers are sacrificing their paychecks for what will end up being halfway between the deal they're asking for and the deal they walked away from. A strike is intended, first and foremost, as a threat. Avoiding it is a goal of the union when it's authorized, every bit as much as it is a goal of management. Xombie fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 04:01
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Tnega posted:I do not have a crystal ball And yet you keep making arguments affirming that you do. quote:And what does making such threats illegal do for the efficacy of said threat? Nobody forced Biden's hand, he could have done nothing and still had a better human rights position on this topic. He chose to reject the human right to strike, full stop. You're proving my point for me. Your argument is entirely concerned with the romanticism of striking, with how righteous it is, or how badly it can hurt management. You haven't made a single concrete argument that it would have helped the rail workers more than government intervention. You refuse to acknowledge any realities or negative effects of striking on the workers themselves, or in this case, the country as a whole. Not because you have a counter to it, but because it's inconvenient to your point. Your argument is equivalent to someone saying their second amendment rights were violated by the perp being arrested before you could shoot them. Is the point your right to kill someone, or your right to not be killed? You have completely glossed over what the purpose of a strike actually is. Tnega posted:There are a lot of people making that claim, each with their own idea of what it means, so I ask you specifically, when are you talking about. There are a number of different times you could be referring to, so please, be specific of when, as the when determines what concessions we are talking about. Why exactly does everyone else have the obligation to specifics while you get to vaguely wave at alternate realities when claiming what the union could have gotten in the event of a strike? Xombie fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 12:48
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Tnega posted:Under Rule II B 1, we both have an obligation to make posts that are fresh or falsifiable. I asked you specifically to elaborate on your point to make it falsifiable, you have chosen not to do so. If you believe I have not met the standards required by the Debate and Discussion forum, the moderation team is available to bring your grievances to. No, you actually never asked me to do that. I am calling you out for not doing it, though. Xombie fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 14:10
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Tnega posted:Thank you for the clarification, I got you mixed up with another poster, a terrible mistake on my part. You already said this and I already responded to you, and you haven't responded to a single thing that I said in the last post. You glossed it all over to mistake me for someone else. It doesn't work that way. We aren't "going in circles", you're just ignoring my response. quote:The closest I have come to 'romanticizing' the act of striking rather than the right from what I said in reviewing my posts was: Absolutely none of the above addresses anything that I said. It's not going in circles when you just refuse to address any of the holes in your argument. You seem to desperately want to goad someone into saying "striking is not a human right" so that you can argue against that point, since you believe you have an argument made up for it. The problem is: no one has made that argument. So perhaps maybe respond to what I did say. You keep trying to chant "striking is a human right" so that you can back up your idea that the mere avoidance of a strike is a human rights violation. But even a union is trying to avoid a strike. A strike is not the ends, it is the means to the end. But you absolutely ignore anyone telling you that the purpose of a strike is a last-ditch negotiating tactic to get concessions from management. It's just inconvenient to your point that the congressional resolution achieved exactly that as an arbitrator. Xombie fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 15:17
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Willa Rogers posted:
It's ultimately a poll of name recognition until there's an actual candidate, though. That is the problem with polling like this, hence why those numbers don't add up to 100. Not that it won't be competitive but it's going to take more than "I've heard of that guy" to get Maryland, a state that has had two Dem senators for 37 years, to flip the senate to the GOP.
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Apr 16, 2024 21:08
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Slickdrac posted:Hogan was pretty popular here, he won his last governor election by 10% and did an incredible job pissing off almost no one while still pushing back on Trump nonsense. The 2 people he's potentially against, one has been the head of the worst run county in the state (for a long rear end time, not specifically due to them, but it's not gotten any better), and the other is nothing but a pile of money. There is extraordinarily little chance Hogan loses. Being a centrist works when you're a governor and are effectively independent of your party affiliation for all real purposes of the power you weild. Maryland voters aren't going to be ignorant of the tenuous grasp the Dems have on the Senate, and whatever popularity that Hogan has isn't enough to be rid of that anchor. He can do all the grandstanding he wants about Trump. All it's going to do is cut him off from his own party's coffers and remind everyone that no matter what he says he's for, his very existence in the Senate will give the GOP the reins to stop any Democratic issue nationally. That's not what the "simpler times" voters are going to be sold on. They're definitely not going to cross the aisle for a senator for the first time in nearly 4 decades to have it. Again, it will be competitive, but the situation and Biden on the ballot will do him in. Xombie fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Apr 17, 2024 |
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Apr 17, 2024 03:35
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koolkal posted:Because we've seen 6 months of Biden and it's clear where he stands? Trump is often unpredictable when he does things depending on public opinion, Republican pressure, random people offering him things, whoever spoke to him last, etc. He is chaos. Can you give an actual example of where Trump's actions have substantially differed from the Republican party line? He was actually president for a full term, the whole "you never know how he's going to act!" argument doesn't work when we have four years of his actions. Keeping in mind as well that every single person in Trump's orbit are full-throated supporters of Israel. This includes his friend Netanyahu himself, whose only criticism from Trump is that he isn't hawkish enough.
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Apr 17, 2024 19:47
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Majorian posted:The fact that he signed it into law and had the political cunning to take credit for it was genuinely unexpected, at least for me. I didn't think he would do it. The fact that the Dems actually did most of the work to make it happen is immaterial; the question was, "How was Trump better than expected?" Donald Trump taking credit for something he didn't do after he failed to stop it and it turns out to be popular is "genuinely unexpected"?
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Apr 17, 2024 19:56
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Majorian posted:Given that the usual Republican MO is austerity at all times, no money to the people even in times of crisis, and given how much of a dullard Trump often is, it was surprising to me that he decided to do something politically smart for a change, yes. If you weren't surprised, good for you. All direct payments so far have been under the last two GOP presidents. The CARES Act is one of the largest handouts to private business in a century. Trump personally grifted from it. quote:He signed it into law instead of vetoing it. That shows that he had more political sense than your usual Republican elected official, which I admit is a low bar. But we're talking about things that surprised us. I'm relating something that surprised me. The CARES Act passed the senate 96-0.
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Apr 17, 2024 20:04
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Elephant Ambush posted:He still signed the bill instead of vetoing it. The material conditions of many people were improved by the free money. You're mad because trump did something good for people and you think the reasons matter. The people who got free money when they needed it most didn't care that he signed the bill out of narcissism. Those same people are also mad at Biden for not following up on the extra money he promised them during his campaign Once again, the CARES Act passed the US Senate 96-0. I'm not even going to get into his personal reasons for signing it, but when it comes to the CARES Act, Trump did not "do it", it didn't in any sense buck the GOP, and it was absolutely in no way unpredictable.
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Apr 17, 2024 20:22
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selec posted:Here’s an angle I’m interested in feedback on: Yet another instance of where "We had four years of Trump" is the answer the question. No, the Democrats didn't change their party line on anything at all just because Trump supported it. In fact, there were multiple instances of Schumer and Pelosi being keen to try to manipulate Trump into softening to the Democrats' proposals by stroking his ego. It never worked, but it's what they did. "We hate this now even though we supported it, because gently caress you" has been the GOP strategy against Obama and now Biden, but the Dems did not do that. They already have a party line about Israel, they aren't going to change it to make Trump look bad.
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Apr 17, 2024 21:12
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Willa Rogers posted:Yesterday The Baltimore Sun published the results of a U.S. Senate poll they sponsored in which Hogan is burying both Democratic candidates in head-to-heads, while the millionaire Trone looks to be the likely D candidate. This is just the numbers you posted the other day, and the same problems with it remain. Hogan is still winning on name recognition ahead of the Democratic primary. "Independent-minded" helps someone running for governor, but doesn't help when he might hand power in the Senate to the GOP just by having "R" next to his name. Hogan has only won elections in non-presidential election years and he'd have to split off Biden voters by double digits. Hogan would not be the first popular "bipartisan" governor to lose a senate race because of his party affiliation. Xombie fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 15:59
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Willa Rogers posted:I posted the Baltimore Sun story today bc it was a deep dive into the numbers; all I posted the other day were the margins by which Hogan was winning. None of that negates all of the problems with the poll, namely that there isn't an actual Democratic candidate yet. This is on top of the issues with polls right now in general, where it's too far ahead of the election and they are done by phone poll and will therefore skew toward "people who pick up their phone for anonymous numbers". quote:I also found it interesting that the Black candidate on the Democratic side isn't leading by a notable margin among Black voters. Why? She's a "County Executive", while Trone is a US House rep. She isn't a particularly strong candidate for US Senate. quote:Yeah, I think he's a shoo-in too, especially given his prior approvals as governor by Democratic voters (and their votes!) as well as the huge margin I mentioned. Again, this would be a shoe-in for governor, but not Senate. People who want a Democratic Senate are going to coalesce around a centrist with a D next to their name, not a centrist with an R next to their name. Party matters far more when running for Senate than Governor, because of the fact that it actually does matter. "Hogan will hand the US Senate to the Republicans and Donald Trump" is going to be an easy refrain for the Dems, and hard for Hogan to fight against because it will be objectively true. Xombie fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 17:29
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zoux posted:Looks like they're going to do it, probably because the Dems have been signaling that they'd protect Johnson over Ukraine aid, so they would be able to whine about it without facing actual consequences of another House speaker race. It would be fun for them to pull this promise after he inevitably backstabs them. Isn't that what happened to McCarthy?
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Apr 18, 2024 17:38
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koolkal posted:No, just seeding future jokes. This does not quite top you arguing that Trump is better for Palestine, but it's up there.
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Apr 19, 2024 16:46
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zoux posted:https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1781294777830432868 I still do not understand how Teslas became such a status symbol when they're the only electric car that actively attempts to kill you.
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Apr 19, 2024 16:47
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