jrober38

Considering the presidential election wasn't held in 2018, no, it's not. It would be helpful if Trump had won anything in court, or hadn't just watched all his lawyers quit on him. But they don't want to risk being disbarred due to lying. At least Trump has Rudy.

Obviously. But I'm not talking about developing countries. I'm talking about actual developed, western world countries where people live longer, and pay a LOT less than Americans for the same healthcare. WHAT EVIDENCE!?!?

Fine. We can ignore marriage because he hasn't spoken about it, but abortion has been a reliable talking point. I honestly don't think you can win enough primaries and become nominee of the GOP without having a firm stance against abortion, which means it'll always be a talking point on the national stage. And like I said, I think there is a very real chance that Roe v Wade is challenged seriously now that there's a heavily tilted SC to the conservative side. Regarding taxes, the GOP tax plans haven't changed in 40 years. Cut taxes for the rich, and rely on trickle down economics which have practically no evidence of actually working. Since Reagan, the wealth gap between the rich and middle class has become a chasm, as the poor and middle class have been left to pick up a disproportionate share of the tax burden. Due to tax breaks for the rich, billionaires often pay less marginal tax than the average worker making $40k a year. At some point a Bernie Sanders type left wing politician is going to run, and win, and they're going to tax the hell out of the top 5% of earners in the US, and everyone else will likely be better off as a result. Instead of cutting taxes for the top 5%, I'd love to see taxes raised significantly on the top 5%, with reasonable tax cuts for everyone else.

This is what doesn't make any sense. You care about efficiency, but US healthcare literally costs at least double that of anywhere else in the developed world.

Dude, talk to me in a couple years after GOP Religious Zealots at the State level keep sending lawsuit after lawsuit to the supreme court trying to strike down abortion rights and marriage equality rights. And spending and size of government are essentially the same thing. The Tea Party whined and complained for 8 years about the deficit under Obama, and the day he was gone they shut up, and now support a guy who has cut taxes and ballooned spending when the economy was doing great. They support a guy who doubled the deficit in 3 years, without being in a major war, when the economy was great. Anyone with any financial sense would know that it's probably a good idea to save for a rainy day when you have your best years every fiscally. Pay down your debts, and get your fiscal house in order. Instead, Trump did the exact opposite, and the "Conservative" supporters loved him for it.

I think you're wrong. Republicans say they care about the size of government and government spending, but when they've been in power over the last 40 years the debt and spending have ballooned. Trump inherited a $500 billion dollar deficit and turned it into a $1.1 trillion dollar deficit in 3 years. Bush blew up the debt before him, and Reagan got the whole thing started back in the 80s. Actions speak louder than words, and in this case it's pretty clear that GOP voters don't give a crap about the size of government or spending. They say they do, but really they want to ram their social beliefs down peoples throats even though in most cases at least two thirds of the country disagrees with them. The fact that Tea Party voters support Trump is one of the biggest hypocrisies of all time. It's almost like when the black guy they hated left the White House, the size of government and government spending didn't matter anymore.

Not allowing abortion, not supporting marriage equality, not supporting medicare for all. Right. And I think Trump knows this. I think the longer he hides in his basement trying to rile up his supporters I think the more dangerous he becomes to democracy in the US.

A lot of Trump supporters are proud to say they don't live in a Democracy, and that they live in a Republic. They fundamentally don't believe that a majority should rule, which makes it easier I think for them to gravitate towards an autocrat-type politician like Trump because ultimately they don't believe in Democracy anyways. All they care about is being in power, and forcing their grossly unpopular ideas down peoples throats. Edit: In all seriousness, if Trump announced today that he was throwing Joe Biden in jail, and announced himself the winner of the election and that he'd stay in power indefinitely and that no elections would be held in 4 years for President, I think a rather large portion of Trump's base would be totally fine with that plan.

The election wasn't hotly contested. In fact it wasn't contested at all by people who are living in reality. Trump is now 1-25 in court. Without evidence, which he has none of, no logical person can actually think the election was contested. The results were clear as day.

So in other words his routine hasn't changed at all over the past 4 years. Play golf, and watch 8-10 hours of cable news every day while pretend to run the country. I heard he cancelled his Thanksgiving trip to Florida. He's just hunkered down in his basement, probably downing insane amounts of fast food. He's probably packing on the pounds like crazy.

Trump is full on running a Stalinist propaganda machine at this point. Nothing coming out of the White House over the last week is even remotely based in truth. Anyone step out of line and they'll be fired.

Trump just fired the guy who said it was the most secure election of all time, and the fired off a bunch of debunked lies. What a lunatic.

My favourite right wing talking point over the summer referring to rioters was "communist anarchists". It's like they held a focus group, and saw that "communist" and "anarchist" tested well as words that scare Republicans and were like, screw it, let's combine the two even though they mean opposite things. LOL

The Maritimes contribute very little economically. It's an agricultural, tourism economy with practically zero manufacturing or financial services jobs. These are low paying, low skill jobs and their products aren't ones that export well or demand high prices. It has nothing to do with dependency, there just isn't anything there that the global economy has any interest in trading for.

In Canada, like the US, provinces pay taxes to the Federal Government, who in turn give money to provinces. We call these equalization payments. Quebec is a huge drain on the country, with Western Canada picking up almost all of the weight. Last year alone Quebec received $13.1 billion in equalization payments. The Maritimes are much smaller overall, but on a per capita basis they're even worse than Quebec. On average Western Canada subsidizes about $2500 per year per person in the Maritimes and about $1500 per year in Quebec. If Canada broke up, Western Canada would benefit greatly, Ontario would essentially be net neutral, and Quebec and the Maritimes would essentially become 3rd world countries.

No. I'm talking about the testimony offered by various intelligence agency heads who said without a shadow of a doubt that the Russians actively interfered in the 2016 election. I couldn't care less about Quebec. Ontario would be much better off just becoming its own country.

Keep in mind the Phizer vaccine requires crazy conditions for it to be properly transported. I think I read that it has to be kept at -90 degrees and the infrastructure to get it to smaller, rural communities is practically non existent. The Moderna vaccine is much easier to transport and distribute.

The GOP plays by a different set of rules. They don't give a you know what. They're happy to disenfranchise voters, gerrymander, practice gross hypocrisy, etc. The Dems need to figure out that the way things have been done in the past doesn't matter anymore. They're battling a party that will do ANYTHING to cling on to its grip of power.

The difference here is that every level of the intelligence community said Russia DID interfere with the election, compared to now when there hasn't been a shred of proof of any voter fraud. Crying about something that didn't actually happen makes Trump look like the loser he is.

I don't see why anyone's outlook should have changed. The Bills played pretty well, scored 30 points, defense played alright despite having to deal with a bunch of turnovers by the O, we had our offense go down the field and take the lead, and ultimately lost on a fluke play. The Bills should still wind up with like 11 or 12 wins this year I'd think. The Miami game looks key but other than Pittsburgh our schedule is pretty manageable against mostly bottom feeders or teams decimated by injuries.

No one is afraid of recounts, but as you said, they're not going to change anything. Recounts historically move elections at this level about 200 votes. Trump is losing by tens of thousands across a handful of states. At some point he needs to accept the math and concede.

Not surprising. The Republican Party thrives off of their base lacking intelligence or common sense. These people are too dumb to read the fine print of where their money is going, or they don't care. It's a cult. They don't question anything Supreme Leader says or does.

Republicans live in perpetual fear. Fear someone will take their guns, fear that minorities will move into their neighbourhoods, fear of immigrants, fear of an economic crash, etc. What a miserable existence.

Trump stopped governing once he got COVID. These people don't care about Americans. They don't care how many die and how many jobs are lost. This was solely about them, and since losing they couldn't care less about doing anything to help the situation.

They thrive off of ignorance and stupidity. You need both to be in the cult.