General Current Events/Political Discussion

[Doctornick | 419]

8 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

That may have been true in 2016, but Barr pretty well laid out what it would take for there NOT to be a peaceful transition and its mail in voting + a trump loss. I don't know how you say its make believe when he has made those comments a few times now. 

As far as your prediction goes, how confident are you? I would happily put up $1,000 against your $1,000 that he loses. But it would be based on election night results. I wouldn't let it sit around for months while trump whines about the result, calls for investigations, and makes everyone wonder if he will actually leave. 

I also think he's going to lose this election, but I think that's going to be due to the neutral voters that sided with him in 2016 changing to Uncle Joe this time around.  Most young people don't vote which is a huge problem.

[NESfiend | 1,519]

6 minutes ago, Estil said:

You do know all me and my wife get is SSDI right?  You seriously think I could wager anywhere near $1000 on well, anything?  Sorry but I'm in no position to do any sort of gambling...I don't get get lottery tickets except for my wife's Christmas card (which has been a tradition pretty much from the start because at the time I didn't want those coupons we used to get in the mail for lotto tickets to go to waste).

I did not know that and didn't mean to be insensitive. 

[CodysGameRoom | 2,009]

2 minutes ago, Doctornick said:

I also think he's going to lose this election, but I think that's going to be due to the neutral voters that sided with him in 2016 changing to Uncle Joe this time around.  Most young people don't vote which is a huge problem.

Honestly... I think Trump is going to win and I hope to hell and high water that I am wrong about that. 

[Estil | 1,265]

12 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

I have an honest question. Why do you support an administration who would make it harder for you to get your income?

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/trump-budget-makes-it-harder-to-get-social-security-disability.html

Incidentally I was just put through some sort of "check up exam" kind of deal (I forget the name) to see if I do in fact still qualify (I think they do this every few years).  This was done by the state government not the federal gov't though.  When I first was trying to get SSDI waaaaaay back around 2011-2012 or so I figured given the recent Great Recession or whatnot they'd have to be more careful about who they allow to qualify.

Honestly when supporting or opposing any candidate you gotta go by the overall balance sheet...you can't expect to match up on everything or even close to it.  I think how it'll play out is the supporters of Biden will vote for him because they want him to win.  Supporters of Trump will vote for him because they feel he has to win.  That's what I think will make the difference in the end...the Trump supporters will want it far more than the Biden ones and that of course will translate into votes.  Trump is the candidate people get excited for and go to rallies for...while so far Biden comes across as a "heh" sort of guy.  We all know how a similar situation like that turned out in (ironically) 2008...

Edited June 24, 2020 by Estil

[Estil | 1,265]

2 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

I did not know that and didn't mean to be insensitive. 

It's okay; I sure wish I could be in a position to "just" put down ten (or even one!) $100 black casino chips (Trump casino?  hee hee) on one wager and not give it a second thought!  

I better just stick with the Dragon Quest casinos...

Edited June 24, 2020 by Estil

[NESfiend | 1,519]

3 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Honestly... I think Trump is going to win and I hope to hell and high water that I am wrong about that. 

I was honestly looking at trump victory bets until about two months back. Now I'm looking the other way. And you can say whatever you want about jaded polls, biased news, etc. But Vegas odds are neutral. Those guys just don't give an edge or giveaway a dime. Trump was the favorite until recently. Now Biden is -160. Thats a MONSTER move in a short period of time. 

[Doctornick | 419]

7 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Honestly... I think Trump is going to win and I hope to hell and high water that I am wrong about that. 

I guess I wouldn't be caught off guard if he did, but I see it as way less likely now than say 3 months ago.  A lot of people in my circle (doctors/pharmacists/nurses) are not voting for him again because of the Covid screw up, let alone what's going on now.  I guess we just have to vote and cross our fingers.

[Estil | 1,265]

2 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

I was honestly looking at trump victory bets until about two months back. Now I'm looking the other way. And you can say whatever you want about jaded polls, biased news, etc. But Vegas odds are neutral. Those guys just don't give an edge or giveaway a dime. Trump was the favorite until recently. Now Biden is -160. Thats a MONSTER move in a short period of time. 

Anyway you could find out how those Vegas odds changed over the course of the 2016 election?

Just so you guys know, I live in one of the reddest states possible so it's not like my Presidential vote is gonna matter one hill of beans anyway.   Too bad I don't live in what I think will be the "big three" deciding states this time (PA/WI/MI...last election it was OH/FL/PA which Trump HAD to get at least two out of three or he had ZERO chance...turns out he got all three and technically didn't even have to get FL!!)

Edited June 24, 2020 by Estil

[captmorgandrinker | 1,651]

40 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Wasn't @Silent Hill making a big argument about personal choices? Didn't you choose to move to Taiwan? By Silent Hill's logic you are only being discriminated against due to your own choices. 

The biggest flaw with that whole thing- you're assuming that Taiwan has the same freedoms as the US does, and they likely do not.   So he did choose to move somewhere that those particular discriminations may be perfectly legal.

If you want to get into global racism, there are much bigger fish to fry than anything going on here.

[Estil | 1,265]

4 minutes ago, captmorgandrinker said:

The biggest flaw with that whole thing- you're assuming that Taiwan has the same freedoms as the US does, and they likely do not.   So he did choose to move somewhere that those particular discriminations may be perfectly legal.

If you want to get into global racism, there are much bigger fish to fry than anything going on here.

Indeed; I imagine just the stuff/politics/whatever going on in my local city/county is plenty complicated enough!!!

[fcgamer | 4,768]

47 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Wasn't @Silent Hill making a big argument about personal choices? Didn't you choose to move to Taiwan? By Silent Hill's logic you are only being discriminated against due to your own choices.

 

That's a fair statement to make. You are absolutely right, if I moved elsewhere, this sort of discrimination would also be removed from my life.

The same can be applied to many of the police shooting victims though, that if they weren't breaking the law, carrying weapons, high on drugs, resisting arrest etc, it would lower their chances of interaction with the police, and then similarly, their chances of ending up a victim to police brutality.

But while both of the above would be true, neither of them solves the issue at hand, an issue that I personally feel us multi faceted and very complex.

[DefaultGen | 5,453]

9 minutes ago, Estil said:

Anyway you could find out how those Vegas odds changed over the course of the 2016 election?

Just so you guys know, I live in one of the reddest states possible so it's not like my Presidential vote is gonna matter one hill of beans anyway.   Too bad I don't live in what I think will be the "big three" deciding states this time (PA/WI/MI...last election it was OH/FL/PA which Trump HAD to get at least two out of three or he had ZERO chance...turns out he got all three and technically didn't even have to get FL!!)

I'm not sure you can go back further than 90 days but PredictIt is great for this. 2016 had a very dramatic flip from Clinton to Trump on election night obviously.
https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/1234/Who-will-win-the-2016-US-presidential-election

They have betting markets for everything. I tend to look at this where people doing this for a living are absorbing all the data, all the polls, then plonking their money down on a bet rather than looking at individual polls to gauge where things are heading. Biden currently at $0.58 (58% likely to win) in 2020.

[Silent Hill | 276]

9 hours ago, Link said:

16 hours ago, Silent Hill said:

Also, police had millions of interactions last year with hundreds of thousands of violent criminals taken off of the streets  But those 10 unarmed black people who were killed last year really goes to show that they systemically don’t protect and serve. 

30 per million fatal police shootings of black people, vs 12 per million for white people. 

And rising. 

Sure, there is a disparity in police shootings towards black people, but your source doesn't investigate or highlight the "why" (interaction rate, community demographics, crime, etc.), doesn't address unarmed vs. armed and doesn't address the race of the officer(s) involved. Your second link doesn't show a rising trend. 

 

9 hours ago, Link said:

17 hours ago, Silent Hill said:

Do you really think less police will have any positive impact in black on black shootings? 
...
More black people were murdered this past weekend (including a toddler) in Chicago alone, than unarmed black people who were killed by white police in 2019.

Chicago is notoriously crime-ridden, as conservatives like to remind me. To address this, in 2016 the mayor planned to hire 970 new police officers. 

That is 3 years after closing the 50 schools I previously mentioned; mostly in black neighborhoods (the city is also notoriously segregated, but that somehow never comes up). Would you like to guess how the crime and homocide rates have gone since these decisions? 

Homicide rates have dropped YOY since 2016 (~35% decrease from 2016 - 2019), were you implying that it rose when more police were hired?

Closing of schools never seems like a good solution, but that article you linked describes the reason why they did it and their intentions of placing those kids in schools that have higher achievement ratings. Haven't looked into whether that ended up helping or not, but their intentions seemed good in 2013. 

 

[Silent Hill | 276]

24 minutes ago, captmorgandrinker said:

1 hour ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Wasn't @Silent Hill making a big argument about personal choices? Didn't you choose to move to Taiwan? By Silent Hill's logic you are only being discriminated against due to your own choices. 

The biggest flaw with that whole thing- you're assuming that Taiwan has the same freedoms as the US does, and they likely do not.   So he did choose to move somewhere that those particular discriminations may be perfectly legal.

If you want to get into global racism, there are much bigger fish to fry than anything going on here.

@CodysGameRoom Can you remind me what my logic was and how it's flawed? I want to make sure "my" logic is still within context when you deem it as flawed. 

[NESfiend | 1,519]

53 minutes ago, Estil said:

Anyway you could find out how those Vegas odds changed over the course of the 2016 election?

I was following it and hillary was the favorite going in. She was a modest favorite down the stretch. The odds turned hard when the "I just grab em by the p****" tape came out. Oddsmakers thought that would turn off female voters. You could have gotten a really nice price on trump right after that. 

Its kind of night and day to compare those elections from an oddsmaker's standpoint though. Vegas learns lessons. They learned not to underestimate him again. He has been the favorite from the beginning this time and they didn't waiver through a LOT of big news. He was still the favorite on June 1. Earlier this month was the first time odds have shifted to where he isnt the favorite. Biden was -140 before the failed rally. That took him up to -160 which is probably somewhat of an overreaction. But it also likely has some to do with trump pushing less testing for the virus there as well. 

I wouldn't bet Biden at -160. If someone wanted to give even money though, id be running to the bank to get Biden money. 

Edit: where you could have really won a boatload of trump money last time was the primary. You wouldn't have needed big money to bet that. A 5 dollar bill would have paid back 100 if you got it in early enough 

Edited June 24, 2020 by NESfiend

[Strange | 1,702]

17 hours ago, Silent Hill said:

Marxism

I don’t recall ever mentioning Marxism?

1 hour ago, NESfiend said:

rememeber my crazy prediction that trump will lose election, call the result bs, and refuse to leave the white house? Still think its crazy after barr interview where he said the reason we have always had peaceful transitions of power is we always had fair elections. Mail in voting is undermining the fairness per barr and trump. Whether thats a bluff or a warning shot, scary stuff.

I honestly believe he won’t transition peacefully if he loses. Just look at his demeanor lately. His facial expressions. He sees the poll numbers. He got a whopping 6200 people to show up in Oklahoma of all places. Look at his walk of shame after the fact. It’s the worst kind of pain a narcissist can feel: he’s starting to wonder if it’s possible that the entire country isn’t in love with him.

[Estil | 1,265]

34 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

IEdit: where you could have really won a boatload of trump money last time was the primary. You wouldn't have needed big money to bet that. A 5 dollar bill would have paid back 100 if you got it in early enough 

Trouble was I honestly didn't figure Trump was really "for real" until Hillary's "deplorables" comment.

10 minutes ago, The Strangest said:

I honestly believe he won’t transition peacefully if he loses. 

Every outgoing President since 1800 has; there's no reason why Trump wouldn't.  Of course he wouldn't like it and he'd really be beside himself on the loss just as much if not more than Hillary was...but again this whole "what if he doesn't leave" is just a bunch of Eric Cartman as Glenn Beck saying "I'm just asking the question of what if..."

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Estil

[Silent Hill | 276]

2 minutes ago, The Strangest said:

17 hours ago, Silent Hill said:

Marxism

I don’t recall ever mentioning Marxism?

You didn't, but BLM did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdpIIiBe7Wc

 

[NESfiend | 1,519]

14 minutes ago, Estil said:

Every outgoing President since 1800 has; there's no reason why Trump wouldn't.  Of course he wouldn't like it and he'd really be beside himself on the loss just as much if not more than Hillary was...but again this whole "what if he doesn't leave" is just a bunch of Eric Cartman as Glenn Beck saying "I'm just asking the question of what if..."

That would again be true if you were talking about the journalists who were bringing that up when he first took office. His attorney general is saying publicly we have always had peaceful transitions because the elections were always fair, but this one doesn't appear that its going to be fair at all because states are inviting fraud via mail in votes. What in the world would be hinting at saying that over and over on TV other than there likely won't be a peaceful transition? That is Trump's AG, not some speculative journalist, telling us pretty directly that a peaceful transition is far from guaranteed if Trump loses and doesn't approve how the states conducted their voting/election processes. Spoiler alert, if he loses, he will call shenanigans. Just what he does when things don't go well. 

Edit: Also, cartman as Glenn beck was priceless. I have to rewatch that. 

Edited June 24, 2020 by NESfiend

[Silent Hill | 276]

17 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

17 hours ago, Silent Hill said:

Feel free to answer my questions directly, otherwise I respect your decision to bail from this topic. 
 

PS: Clearly people who support BLM and Marxism are the ones who are “wrong”. Troubling for us all if you think I’m part of the minority on that. 

In my opinion, “supporting” BLM can be awareness however you want it to be.

 

It can be marching in a protest. 
it can be trying to educate someone online through facts and information. 
it can be asking your racist co-worker not to use those terms around you. 
It can be not purchasing a product that has an outdated racist stereotype picture. 
 

What is wrong about any of that?

Nothing is wrong about any of that and I don't think I've implied otherwise. 

The most recent BLM movement has resulted in communities being destroyed, innocent people being injured/killed, city blocks being held hostage, restricted police presence/crime upticks and even racial division/segregation. Those are the things nobody in their right mind should be supporting.

[Strange | 1,702]

11 minutes ago, Estil said:

Every outgoing President since 1800 has; there's no reason why Trump wouldn't.  Of course he wouldn't like it and he'd really be beside himself on the loss just as much if not more than Hillary was...but again this whole "what if he doesn't leave" is just a bunch of Eric Cartman as Glenn Beck saying "I'm just asking the question of what if..."

My reasoning for wondering is because he’s consistently floated around small remarks about not leaving if he loses, serving more than two terms, how much the people would support him if he did either, etc. 

You’re quoting South Park to the guy that watches a lot of South Park. A lot of the SP fan base view it as the bastion for right wing comedy television... but miss all the parts where SP tears conservatives a new one and focus solely on when they rip on liberals. That Glenn Beck episode was not a parody of liberal conspiracy theorists. 

[Estil | 1,265]

3 minutes ago, The Strangest said:

My reasoning for wondering is because he’s consistently floated around small remarks about not leaving if he loses, serving more than two terms, how much the people would support him if he did either, etc. 

You’re quoting South Park to the guy that watches a lot of South Park. A lot of the SP fan base view it as the bastion for right wing comedy television... but miss all the parts where SP tears conservatives a new one and focus solely on when they rip on liberals. That Glenn Beck episode was not a parody of liberal conspiracy theorists. 

All the more reason I respect SP more...no sacred cows, nothing is above being parodied.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,607]

54 minutes ago, Estil said:

You do know all me and my wife get is SSDI right?  You seriously think I could wager anywhere near $1000 on well, anything?  Sorry but I'm in no position to do any sort of gambling...I don't get get lottery tickets except for my wife's Christmas card (which has been a tradition pretty much from the start because at the time I didn't want those coupons we used to get in the mail for lotto tickets to go to waste).

Sounds like socialism to me.  Remind me why you're not a big Bernie supporter again?

No, seriously though.  You say we should be "scared" of BLM?  That toppled statues mean a future of anarchy and whatnot?

What you should truly be afraid of is @cartman's quote. 

"Sick ass cult."

Because that is how both sides see each other now.  As enemies that should probably be destroyed.  Infighting and fingerpointing have already left our government nearly incapable of getting anything done, and every trend indicates it will only get worse and worse.

Just picture the 2028 election.  The Republicans put up another unqualified populist strongman whose main asset appears to be riling up his base by blaming all of their problems on foreigners/immigrants/liberals/etc.  Science continues to take a backseat.  Opponents call supporters racists and Nazis.

The Democrats then put up a counterweight candidate whose ideas all alienate the blue collar and middle classes because they appear to be more focused on the gay, Muslim Latino illegal aliens that want $30 an hour minimum wage and the right to vote.  Opponents call supporters Marxists and anarchists.

Both sides increasingly the see the other as evil.  Collaboration and compromise continue to go extinct.

How and can we reverse that?  Because it ain't gonna take us to good places.

[Estil | 1,265]

3 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

No, seriously though.  You say we should be "scared" of BLM?  That toppled statues mean a future of anarchy and whatnot?

NOT BLM in general/the mainstream of the movement...just the radical/extremists who are hurting people/things and claiming their BLM name!!

Gosh, how many more times do I have to explain the difference???

[captmorgandrinker | 1,651]

1 minute ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Both sides increasingly the see the other as evil.  Collaboration and compromise continue to go extinct.

How and can we reverse that?  Because it ain't gonna take us to good places.

A really strong third party candidate after a majority of people are sick of all that bullshit?

I mean, look how much of the popular vote Perot managed to snag in '92.   If that can translate into electoral votes, '24 or '28 could get interesting if the big two keep trotting out fossils for us to pick from.