Trump Versus Biden

[GSOgymrat]

By this logic, you shouldn't give CPR to someone who's choking or a blood transfusion to someone who's bleeding out.  If you see someone in a bad way, and your first inclination is to let them die, you might be either a sociopath or a Republican.

I think Dave Ramsey has a point, although probably not the point he intended. What exactly is the purpose of this "stimulus check"? Is it suppose to stimulate the economy and save jobs? Is it supposed to provide financial relief for individuals and families? I find it difficult to believe that a one-time check for $600 is going to make any significant change in most people's financial situations or the US economy. Most of these relief efforts are too little, too late. I think the absolute minimum should be $2000 per month for at least three months.

[Hydra009]

I think Dave Ramsey has a point, although probably not the point he intended. What exactly is the purpose of this "stimulus check"? Is it suppose to stimulate the economy and save jobs?

At this point, it's mostly to forestall homelessness and allow people to buy groceries to survive until vaccinations ramp up to the point most places can reopen and operate with minimal risk, thus allowing a return to semi-normalcy.

You're right that it's far too little and too far inbetween.  A lot of other countries have done better in this area with a much less gruesome deathtoll.

[GSOgymrat]

Regarding government stimulus, "the risk of overdoing it is less than the risk of underdoing it."

https://youtu.be/1Ks54jjNw_s

[Cassia]

Regarding government stimulus, "the risk of overdoing it is less than the risk of underdoing it."

Yeah, government debt is actually civilian surplus. It mostly ends up taking the form of treasury bonds that are reasonable investments if you believe the empire will survive. Give money to the bottom 50% and they will spend it. How about we start actually taxing corporations again and maybe let the fuckers fail? We are a socialists for the wealthy/corporates and capitalists for the poor.

[Hydra009]

Biden admin purchases 200 million more vaccine doses

A helluva upgrade from literally no plan barely over a month ago to enough vaccine doses for nearly everyone.

I've seen it, you take this little beautiful baby, and you pump life-securing vaccines into him/her...we've had many such instances, a child went to have the vaccine, then didn't get sick at all from germs people used to die from literally a year ago.  It was very sad!

[SGOS]

Biden admin purchases 200 million more vaccine doses

A helluva upgrade from literally no plan barely over a month ago to enough vaccine doses for nearly everyone.

I'm finally getting my first shot tomorrow.  Virginia's rollout has been marred by confusion and chaos.  You can probably google that and see that it's not just me.  Partly, there has been no direction from the top.  The responsibility got passed down to the governors, some of whom passed it down to local health departments, and the farther down the chain it got, officials were making different decisions, and we ended up with a mess.

I've been waiting for an appointment for a month.  What has turned the tide here is that CVS stepped up to the plate, and private enterprise did what government could not.  Oh, that was not without problems either.  My neighbor, her husband, and myself spent two full days of frustration trying to navigate a signup system that wasn't working, because the on line system was being reprogrammed while the sign up was to take place, so it would be usable for a couple of minutes, and your signup would get chopped off before you entered all your information, and then one appointment would open up again 15 minutes later, everyone on line would jump into action until like the first sperm that hits the egg, it's over and you have to wait for the next round and start from scratch.  We were doing this at 5:00 AM for the last two days.

My neighbor struck pay dirt first, and I did a few hours later.  I have to drive 100 miles for my shot in snow tomorrow, but I'm hoping it will be light and I'll give my self three hours to get there (50 miles one way).

I've wondered if Biden had anything to to with my good fortune.  I think it's too early for that, but 200 million doses is going to help get this thing get going a lot.  Yeah, from nothing to something.  I'll take it.

[SGOS]

At this time, 20 hours after I got an appointment, all 34 CVS stations in Virginia are fully booked.  I drove to mine yesterday, just to make sure I knew where it was and a guy in the store explained procedure to me.  They will have two stations and be giving out one shot at each station every 15 minutes.  This is one of the smaller towns in the state.  Some stores may have more stations than two, I suppose.

Now being fully booked yesterday morning didn't mean exactly that, because one opening would appear every once in a while and disappear quickly, but I imagine it's more fully booked than it was fully booked 24 hours ago.  It's going to take a long time to get Virginia vaccinated.  No news there of course.

I think I'm in the wrong thread, but I'm done for now.

[drunkenshoe]

Stimulus? Screwed up? Where do these people live? And these numbers are pre-pandemic of course.

Serious amount of people have 400 dollars, in dollars, for any emergency expense where I live. It's too bad these people don't have some 'dollar currency' in the US to hide under their pillow.

40% of Americans don't have $400 in the bank for emergency expenses: Federal Reserve

https://abcnews.go.com/US/10-americans-struggle-cover-400-emergency-expense-federal/story?id=63253846

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2018-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201905.pdf

Almost 40% of American adults wouldn%u2019t be able to cover a $400 emergency with cash, savings or a credit-card charge that they could quickly pay off, a Federal Reserve survey finds.

About 27% of those surveyed would need to borrow the money or sell something to come up with the $400 and an additional 12% would not be able to cover it at all, according to the Federal Reserve's 2018 report on the economic well-being of U.S. households released on Thursday.

In addition, 12% of adults said they wouldn't be able to pay their current monthly bills if faced with the unexpected $400 expense, the survey found.

The 2018 results are very similar to those from the Federal Reserve's 2017 survey.

Overall, the number of people who said they are able to handle unexpected expenses is on the rise since the Federal Reserve began the survey in 2013.

However, 17% of adults in the U.S. said they are not able to fully pay off all of their current month%u2019s bills.

[aitm]

Frankly I think the repubs are overestimating Trumps base. They see a few thousand, maybe they see a hundred thousand fanatics, but they don’t see that, IMO, probably 50% didn’t vote Trump they voted Republican. I see videos of hundreds protesting all over, but not 35 million. I see a large vocal angry crowds gathered at spots all over the country and protesting...but we are not seeing 35 million. They, IMO, risking the real base of the Republican cause to the idea that the few speak for the majority. Whole no doubt, there are tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands screaming, but we are not seeing 35 million screaming. That would be a whole lot different. Pandering to the vocal because they are scared. Now, I don’t have access to the phone records of all the repubs from their constituents, but I think, if we could, we would find a lot less that we think as far as succumbing to 35 million objections. One jackass calling 50 times, and I do believe that many of them call constantly to scream, there is not 35 million calling. But....I could be wrong.

[Mike Cl]

My wife's Dr. called her yesterday and said she could get her shot today if she wanted--and she wanted.  Dr. also asked if she had a spouse that needed one, and she said yes.  So, today, both of us get our first one!  We both have been trying for a month or so to navigate the online signup, but it was really wonky.  Anyway, the first today--hooray!   I wonder, tho, just how much of change in daily life that that will mean?  Oh, I want it--but I will not burn my masks just yet.

[GSOgymrat]

Frankly I think the repubs are overestimating Trumps base. They see a few thousand, maybe they see a hundred thousand fanatics, but they don’t see that, IMO, probably 50% didn’t vote Trump they voted Republican. I see videos of hundreds protesting all over, but not 35 million. I see a large vocal angry crowds gathered at spots all over the country and protesting...but we are not seeing 35 million. They, IMO, risking the real base of the Republican cause to the idea that the few speak for the majority. Whole no doubt, there are tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands screaming, but we are not seeing 35 million screaming. That would be a whole lot different. Pandering to the vocal because they are scared. Now, I don’t have access to the phone records of all the repubs from their constituents, but I think, if we could, we would find a lot less that we think as far as succumbing to 35 million objections. One jackass calling 50 times, and I do believe that many of them call constantly to scream, there is not 35 million calling. But....I could be wrong.

I happened to have a conversation yesterday with two guys who identify as conservative and voted for Trump but now do not support him. I suspect there are a lot of people who think Trump didn't live up to expectations. One problem is the mainstream news and social media amplify the extremes. Pundits look for extremes on either side of the political divide to make their points.

[Shiranu]

If there was ever a shining example of the difference between Democrats and Republicans/Trump Cultists, this "defense" is it.

Democrats: "Here are the reasons we believe him to be guilty."
Republicans: "Here are the reasons we believe Democrats are the spawn of Satan."

Classic.

They have decided to quintuple down on their brand, which is to just cause more divisiveness and anger.

[Hydra009]

Documented evidence
Republicans:  I don't believe in that made up BS!

Someone on Twitter with some weird, incoherent conspiracy theory
Republicans:  So true!

[GSOgymrat]

Nikki Haley breaks with Trump: 'We shouldn't have followed him'

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued stunning remarks breaking with former President Trump, telling Politico in an interview published Friday that she believes he “let us down.”

“We need to acknowledge he let us down,” Haley, who served in her ambassador role under Trump, said. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

Haley’s remarks are her strongest yet against the former president in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and come as Trump's legal team is set to present its defense of Trump on Friday in his second Senate impeachment trial.

The House impeached the former president for a second time shortly after the insurrection, saying his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud following his election loss to President Biden and his comments earlier that day incited the mob that stormed the Capitol.

The former South Carolina governor told Politico that she has not spoken with Trump since the mob attack, further expressing her disappointment with remarks he gave at a rally ahead of the assault condemning his own vice president, Mike Pence.

“When I tell you I’m angry, it’s an understatement,” Haley said. “I am so disappointed in the fact that [despite] the loyalty and friendship he had with Mike Pence, that he would do that to him. Like, I’m disgusted by it.”

Haley said that the president "believes he is following" his oath of office by challenging the election results, adding, "There’s nothing that you’re ever going to do that’s going to make him feel like he legitimately lost the election." ...

[SGOS]

I listened to much of the Republican defense on my way back from getting my covid shot.  I think they did a good job of reaching out and hanging on to their constituents without seeming like they were in on the prank with Trump.  Superficially, it sounded like a great defense of free speech.  And I think they could probably win with their arguments in court of law, with the general understanding of free speech.

As a side note, I've been opposed to free speech for at least 30 years after I first tuned into HATE Radio, as they referred to their station in Kalispell, Montana, but I don't expect anyone to accept my position.  I will say, that I support responsible speech, while I oppose free speech.  But more to the point:

I got a kick out of all the Democrats yelling about how much they want to FIGHT.  That audio was a stunning piece of courtroom drama, which one of the lawyers pointed out carefully, was not about "whataboutism."  OK, it's not about whataboutism, so then it's actually about something else?  But in fact, it was whataboutism, and saying it is not doesn't make it not.

Those Democrats were speaking in metaphors, trying to appear hard working, and if you noticed 90 percent of those fight audios, never asked another person to fight, and when they did, I will admit it becomes a chancy metaphor because you don't know who is listening, and you don't know how they will respond.  Not one of the Democrats, including the females, for all their mighty blather (both the men and the women), ever went out and threw a punch.  This is why it's clearly metaphorical.  Now if they ended up sending a mob to the capitol with their fight words, it ceases to be so metaphorical, and as an advocate of responsible speech would hold them accountable.

But Trump clearly knew his audience.  For four years he had cultivated a deep relationship with the worst of the domestic terror groups known to the FBI, he did everything to make it clear that they saw eye-to-eye on how things must be handled in divisive disagreements like his election loss.  He told them to "Stand by."  He praised their violent behavior, and called them good people.

"Whataboutism," is seldom posited as comparing oranges to oranges.  Whataboutism is used to turn your turd into the other guys' orange.  Remember Brauch?