Coreece

Do you guys realize how dumb you all sound? If not, then It might be time to take at least 6 months off from it all. (preferably a year) No politics, no news, no posting. Just go about your real life while you still can. Then come back here, and I guarantee you'll see what I mean.

Ya, they've managed to conserve the windy city's gusts of corruption all for themselves.

From the last several post of yours that I read, it seems your idea of a republican poster child represents all of us bunker building, yacht sailing, private jet flying, mansion dwelling, tax evading deplorables that give nothing to charity. I mean ya, what conservative couldn't relate to that?

As far as this forum is concerned, I can only assume you're talking about people like Phil and Joe Webs. Tho I like Joe's style and he only did it once, so I'll give him a pass.

I don't necessarily disagree, it's just interesting coming from you given that in Illinois alone there have been 10 Democrat State reps/Senators that have been convicted of racketeering, bribery, fraud, extortion and/or tax evasion in the last 10 years, and some are even still in office. It'd be interesting to see the numbers, but from my experience it would seem that on a local level democrats are by far more corrupt. But I grew up in Detroit so there's a little bias there.

Kind of sounds like entrapment. And if the Reps could do it all on their own, then it would seem like a gross misuse of democrat donations. Also, the hard part is getting their voice out there, so don't underestimate the power of advertising. And once they gain traction people tend to base their decision around a single issue whether it's for something they agree with or against something they don't.

That's more of an argument for why this is a bad idea - by trying to use the same tactics that go us into this mess to get us out. And if we go back to the comparison of this being like a political poker game, even degenerate gamblers would consider it a form of cheating. All I'm really saying is that I don't see this as a viable long-term strategy. If it's just a one-off thing, then whatever, let's move forward.

Maybe in the short-term, if they're lucky. Tho there is the possibility of the republicans adopting a similar strategy, so the Dems can pick the Reps candidate and vice versa. Then when that shit show implodes, it might build some momentum for a 3rd party - so that's a good thing, I suppose. It's good in the sense that they're digging themselves out of a hole, if they're lucky. A hole they really didn't need to be in to begin with. Depending on the companies level of grace, they could just let them move forward having learned from the experience, or they could say that this guy was a disaster and cost them 6-months of productivity all because of a nepotistic CEO and invertebrate hiring manager.

That's fine, but the idea of "paraphrasing a phase" is kind of funny. Curious to know what the original phrase was, or if it's even a thing. And that wasn't even the part that really caught my attention. He said that America's best days are ahead of us, which I certainly believe is a possibility, I'm just wondering if it's before or after the "Russian Nuclear Armageddon." Whatever happened to the days when we could all collectively come together and poke fun of our political figures regardless of personal affiliation. That's the America I remember. . .but maybe it was a regional thing given I grew up in a swing state. I mean It's even getting more difficult to poke fun on SNL without any pushback - and it's absolutely cringeworthy how people idolize these political servants as if they're gods and get all indignant when they're blasphemed.

Damn, I don't even know who you guys are anymore. You're effectively settling for a political poker game of Razz whereby the worst possible selection of candidates not only wins, but is encouraged to normalize the fringes of radical ideology. It takes the lesser of two evils to the next level, beyond Idiocracy. At that point you might as well just vote for the opposing POS candidate, that way when such a system goes to shit - and it will - you could at least blame the other party, and everyone wins!

Cue republicans supporting a suspected human trafficker. There was an article on Medium about how the DNC gave Tate $2 million dollars to fund his campaign to weaken more suitable republican candidates. https://medium.com/the-haven/democrats-fund-andrew-tates-campaign-to-promote-conservative-values-e121c15379f5 The article is a bit of satire. The giveaway for me was that they kept referring to Jaime Harrison as a woman, lmao. Apparently the writer is a comedian and I found it all pretty amusing. He almost got me. The sad thing tho is that it's not really far from the truth: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/03/the-democrats-are-purposely-boosting-far-right-republicans-this-will-backfire

The amendment also cut $2.6 million from the CDC's budget, the exact amount that had been allocated to the CDC for firearms research the previous year. The message was received loud and clear. Not sure which year you're talking about specifically, there were a lot. The one that sticks out off the top of my head was back in 2013 I think, when Obama allowed for about $10 million dollars in CDC gun violence research, without the bias of course. I'm sure there was more over the years that provided much insight. I mean the violence prevention programs that I mentioned in my post up-thread have been based primarily off CDC guidelines.

Not without the help of the DNC, apparently: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/03/the-democrats-are-purposely-boosting-far-right-republicans-this-will-backfire An alarming number of people employed as professional political strategists by the Democratic party do not seem to understand what “politics” actually means. If this sounds too cute to be true, think of it another way: if all of the professional political strategists employed by the Democratic party do understand what “politics” actually means, they are negligent and willing to do harmful things for short-term gain. Either way, it ain’t good. The most glaring manifestation of this in the current election cycle is the fact that Democrats across the country spent millions of dollars to boost the candidacies of right-wing Maga candidates in the Republican primaries, on the theory that those extremists would be easier to defeat in the general election. The Washington Post found that Democrats had spent close to $20m in eight states on ads meant to elevate the profile of far-right candidates and election deniers running for governorships and for Congress. A number of those candidates, like the maniacal Christian zealots Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Darren Bailey in Illinois, did in fact win their primaries, setting up, in theory, easier races for the Democrats in those states to win, because, in theory, swing voters prefer not to vote for lunatics. A common objection to this strategy is, “What if one of those lunatics wins? And you helped him? Wouldn’t you feel stupid?” Sure. But that objection, reasonable as it is, accepts the underlying premise that the rightness or wrongness of spending millions of dollars to boost the support of dangerous religious fascists within one of America’s two main political parties comes down to whether or not those dangerous religious fascists win the 2022 elections. The Democratic strategists who engineered this will say: “They won’t win, so the strategy was sound.” And that is where their blinkered view of the nature of politics begins to show its true futility. Because – my god, it’s hard to believe – politics is more than the next election. Yes! Time marches on endlessly into the future! And the things that we do today help to shape the things that happen next in an infinite and largely unpredictable chain of cause and effect! It’s crazy, I know. It is now accepted as conventional wisdom, for example, that perhaps it was not strategically wise for the United States to arm mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan fighting the USSR in the 80s, because later on some of those same people with those same weapons were fighting the US. But this same sort of elementary insight has not permeated the Democratic consulting world. If you help to make the Maga candidates stronger today, it is possible that that will have negative social and political consequences even if they do not win the election in November 2022. Reality, which is real, unfolds slower and longer than a political campaign, which is an artificial construct with an arbitrary timeline. Duh. Imagine for a moment the possibility that the goal of “politics” is not just winning the next election, but rather reshaping the deepest power arrangements of the world in a more just way. In this conception of politics, the important thing is not just bringing along a handful of high officials in order to engineer a 51% voting majority in Congress, but rather evolving the views of hundreds of millions of people in a way that will bring the officials along with them. Electoral politics follows social change, not vice versa. And “changing society,” rather than “targeting a narrow slice of swing voters,” requires deep and ongoing organizing – the sort of organizing that creates movements, not campaigns. When you take a moment to step back and view history as the endless stream of struggle that it is, it is not hard to see why it is dumb to dedicate resources to making Maga Republicans more visible and viable within their own party. You are promoting an awful ideology in hopes of winning votes – but in the long run, politics is a battle of ideology. The votes follow the ideology. The consultants are fighting on the wrong battleground, and no matter how many polls they have, they are not clever enough to predict the chaotic long-run effects of fueling a movement that is the opposite of the movement we should be trying to build. Part of wisdom is understanding your limitations. Neither you nor I nor the Democratic National Committee can predict the future with confidence. What we can do is to fight for justice today. We can do the hard work of organizing today and tomorrow. We can try to push society in the right direction. By changing society itself, we can make the ground more fertile for political candidates who will do the right thing. The historic figures who have done the most to promote justice did not do it by deviously clever manipulations of voter data. They did it by fighting for stuff that was right. Spending money to try to dupe hapless Republican voters into backing the goofiest fascist is not just stupid; it goes against justice. Tricking people is not part of organizing. These sophisticated Democratic strategists are pouring poison into the well that we all, sooner or later, will have to drink from. . . .Disgusting.

We've talked about this 3-4 years ago so I don't mind repeating myself. I've posted tons of research in this forum from the CDC over the last 15 years wrt to gun violence. The ban wasn't on studying gun violence, it was a ban on the CDC either promoting or advocating against gun control. Some may say that this had a chilling effect on the amount of research, but what it really did was expose/limit the amount of any bias in such research.

It appears that people like Phil are more interested in "ruining the day for republicans," so probably not. Our redrawn district just took effect, but at the time you posted this it was like 20 miles wide and stretched 150 miles north and south between mid and northern Michigan - two completely different worlds. In the south were cities like Flint and Saginaw which are notorious for their high level of poverty and violent crime. In the north is Iosco County which has one of the highest suicide rates in the state, if not the highest. This was a big military town with a lot a veterans still residing here, so that may be contributing factor. Rural areas like this tend to have more household guns than urban areas like Flint, but the violent gun crime is virtually non-existent - maybe like 0-1 gun homicides per year. Our reps have been democrats that primarily focused on issues in Flint and Saginaw, which is fine since they've obviously needed it more over the last 10 years or so. Doesn't really matter anymore anyway since we're now apart of a district that shares a more homogenous demographic. Anyway, Flint and Saginaw have made some improvements with youth crime prevention programs which have shown promise in various areas around the country. The idea is that if we can better serve high risk youth between the ages of 15-24 when most crime is committed, it significantly reduces the odds of them not only committing crime now, but living a life of crime latter in life. However, the Dem rep also introduced a violent crime bill that would give 25 million a year for local law enforcement to perform coordinated surge programs with the ATF to get criminals off the street. But wait, didn't the Dems already try this with Biden's violent crime Bill back in the 90s? Didn't they admit that it incarcerated blacks disproportionately? Didn't they admit that it was an "unforeseen" consequence even though Clinton warned them about it a week before he signed it into law anyway? Who the hell do they think is gonna be arrested when you have this surge of local and federal law enforcement concentrated in densely populated black neighborhoods with the highest crime? It's just the SSDD, and 20 years from now they're gonna say it was just another unforeseen consequence and then blame it on republicans and racist cops.

I never really got into any of that twitter/facebook stuff, but lately I've been reading things by Sabine Hossenfelder who's been a breath of fresh air and good for science. She also has a youtube channel called Science Without the Gobbledygook, which was much needed - I just wish she came around a little sooner. Some of her humor is a little cheesy at times, but the nerd in me thinks it's kind of cute in a weird way. Also, I haven't read much of his stuff, but enjoy watching interviews with Roger Penrose. For some reason the guy's just hilarious to me and I like how he thinks. I recently came across a video where he had a debate with Sabine and Michio Kaku about abandoning multiverse theory, which was kind of interesting/funny. I also like watching interviews by Lex Friedman. He's a weird dude, but has a long guestlist of top talent in select fields. Any other reccomendations would be appreciated.

Lmao, dude you're more addicted to FOX than any conservative here. You have at least 469 posts about them, compared to 137 posts from 5 of the most frequent conservative posters here, combined! And most of those are likely replies to you about how they don't really watch it, or how you misrepresneted articles you obviously didn't even read. I get more FOX news from you then anywhere else. You're obsessed! Time for an intervention.

From what I've heard, it sounds more like an expensive hobby.

Hmmm....that kinda skates over the line into troll territory. Oh well, I guess it's no fun being ignored either. I thought about that, but It's all still a part of a sincere point that I'm trying to make. And it's not so much about being ignored. It's just that sometimes people don't want to put forth any effort unless you poke their ego a bit.

No, of course not. I just had to throw that in there because if I don't at least try to be somewhat provocative I don't get any action.

You think I'm gonna let you off the hook just because you said Merry Christmas? Ok, ya, maybe I am.

Due compensation in the context of using it here? Less than nothing. What was I thinking making an ethics argument against liberals getting free shit? I should've said that just because it has a watermark doesn't give you the right to steal it. A watermark is used as a deterrent with the hope that you won't use it due to the lesser quality and would only demonstrate how cheap and desperate you are. But whatever, I'll agree that the author really isn't losing any money and nobody here is really making any money off it, so the net benefit is free advertising for the author/company. But still, they could make a stink about it if they wanted it to. Besides, these people work hard, throw a couple bones, especially if you're the type of person always bitching about low wages.

Thanks, had to look it up. I would've thought it was some type of autoerotic prison sex.

Just because something is watermarked doesn't mean it's ethical to use it without due compensation.

Yes, like Jesus. Jesus never questioned the existence of God. Hannity on the other hand questioned the existence of any evidence Powell had to support her claim and tucker called her out on it. So I reaaly don't know wtf you're talking about.