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NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Political Discussion Thread

I'm curious as to how much he paid his accountants to cook the books to get out of paying taxes in the US (but still paid in India & Philippines as reported).
 
debate-bingo.jpg
 
At what point does personal expression stop? I was reading an article about a grocery store chain being sued because it will not allow its employees to wear BLM masks. A woman in TX was fired from a fast food restaurant who refused to take off a BLM masks.

Now I understand the frustration if they allowed other masks if they don’t and there is a policy against that kind of thing, should people be able to wear BLM masks anyways?
 
I understand employers not wanting their employees to create controversy by expressing political opinions on the job and I think it's reasonable to ask them to not use their platform as an employee to promote their personal political views.... as long as the policy is universally and equally applied. I'm pro-BLM but if I ran a business I don't know that I'd want my employees stirring up trouble.

On the other hand, with the BLM issue in particular, enough is enough. If it takes stirring up trouble to finally move past the racial bias in our society, maybe that's what needs to happen. Good trouble.
 
michaelskis said:
At what point does personal expression stop?
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When you enter into a private business. If you can require someone to wear a mask in your store, you probably can require your employees to wear a certain kind of mask. Consistent policies would be enforceable. I agree that as a business owner who serves all populations, you likely would rather have your employees have no political affiliation at all, which is reasonable to ask your employees while they are on the job.

Now if that business owner decided they wanted to fire an employee for protesting or putting something about going protesting on their social media... then it is likely an attack on someone's personal expression and would need to be reviewed.
 
An interesting take on the debate - the source has an admittedly conservative slant, so take it fwiw, or with a grain of salt, or with a shot of whiskey:

Winning a debate 30 seconds at a time: The debate Tuesday night is not about the audience watching it live—nearly all of whom will be high information voters who have made up their minds. This is a “social media debate” in which each campaign will be looking for snippets to clip, package, and push on their social media channels to reach low information voters. The Biden team says it will be manning three online spin rooms—one to push content through their social media channels, one to feed content to their “influencer” supporters, and another to work with progressive social media pages. So there won’t be a traditional “winner” or “loser” of the debate as a whole...
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sweep.thedispatch.com

The Sweep: Can Latino Voters Help Trump Take Florida?

The state's large Cuban American population helps him, and he has cooled his anti-immigration rhetoric this time around.
sweep.thedispatch.com sweep.thedispatch.com
 
That's the problem thought isn't it? I'm reminded of a debate on The West Wing, where the president talked about 10 word answers. That's what gets people fired up, those snippets you talk about. But as that show so adroitly pointed out, what are the next 10 words? We are the most entertained and yet least informed electorate in history. And it keeps getting worse and it saddens me to no end.

Just for grins, here is the clip I was talking about:

 
kjel said:
I think there are a few things that could easily retool the federal student loan system and repayment:

  1. Federal student loan interest rates should be pegged at a long term treasury note rate (10, 20, 30 years). Current and past rates are usurious in comparison to and higher than mortgage rates.
  2. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness system for federal loans is a joke how it is currently administered. Make people wait 10 years for loan forgiveness only for them to find out they were in the wrong repayment plan or their job was reclassified and no longer eligible for forgiveness. I'd propose that for each year of qualified Public Service that 10% of the original student loan balance be forgiven annually. That way nobody is held hostage in a job or job type for 10 entire years before forgiveness, but still derives some benefit of being a public servant.
  3. Student loan interest deduction on tax returns should be uncapped for all filers regardless of income. It's currently capped at $2,500 and phases out for higher earners which penalizes joint filers and filers with advanced degrees which often come with higher debt. This is an "above the line" item on the return which reduces adjusted gross income.
  4. Just as there is an American Opportunity Tax Credit for higher education tuition & expenses that can be taken for 4 years, there should be an additional tax credit of $2,500 for student loan principal repayment. If you manage to clear through the interest owed on loans and can chip away at the principal balance then you should receive a dollar for dollar tax credit against the income tax you owe. This is a "below the line" item on the return which reduces the amount of tax owed. It should not be refundable, only reduce your tax liability to $0.
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Especially #2. My wife and I have been sweating bullets for 4 years that the program would be done away with as both Trump and DeVos have suggested.

Of 4 of these are reasonable and sensible changes to be made. These need to get in front of legislators. This would be far more palatable both to voters and legislators than the talk of wiping out $10s of thousands in student debt and avoids the moral hazard argument.
 
Why is everything in political ads a "radical" or "extreme" group He formed a radical anti gun group or an extreme pro life group. Can't someone just be pro or anti gun or pro life or choice without being extreme? Can't wait for the commercials to end.
 
dw914er said:
We live in a strange world; I am amazed by the number of Trump supporters that have rationalized the information Trump's taxes.
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Truth. I have a real life friend (tuba player!) who's decided that my shares of NYT articles need contesting.

"showmewhereheactuallydidsomethingillegal" and referencing #butheremails, blah blah blah.
 
Amy Coney Barrett.

Aside from the politics surrounding her nomination, what do y'all think of her qualifications? She has three years on a federal bench. Is that enough for us to have a good indication of how she'd perform as a Supreme Court Justice? Aside from abortion, what legal issues are you primarily interested to research her record on?

Another question I have: how long should Supreme Court Justices ideally serve? Not that I think age is necessarily an indicator of ability, but the appointments are basically for life. RBG served for 27 years. Clarence Thomas has been on the bench for 29 years. I'm not advocating for term limits or anything like that, just wondering if there are any opinions on the sweet spot for length of time that Supreme Court Justices should serve considering how much influence/responsibility they have.
 
^ I think we need to seriously look at term limits for federal judges at all levels, up to the Supreme Court.

At the Supreme Court, I'd like to see something like staggered 18 year term limits (which would generally preclude any president from having more than a couple appointments during an 8-year term) or an age limit of 80-years, whichever occurs first. If a justice hits their 18 years and they are still under 80, they could be rotated down to a circuit or appellate court where they could continue to serve until they are 80.

I think it would take a Constitutional Amendment to make these changes though so I'm not too hopeful.
 
Term limits for all elected or appointed positions make sense. It forces out those who have been in for a long time. It allows for generally younger people and new thoughts. The idea that RGB or Thomas have 30 years on the SC is too much, as they have an unreasonable influence on either side of whatever side you are on.

I like more SC justices (13 or 15) as well as term limits or age limits. I feel like I come off as an ageist, but I am really not. I just think we need to focus on getting new ideas and not allow the same people to make decisions on our future, especially when they won't be as affected by it.
 
I'm all for term limits on judges. I also agree with Peach, the judge has not been a federal judge long enough to be the top judge in the land.
 
Wow. All I got is wow. I feel like Biden should have just said, is this what you want for for four more year, over and over again.

Not a fan of calling the President a clown or to shut up.

President was so unpresidential and childish, I was actually surprised... which surprised me that I was surprised by how childish he was.

Two more of these to go...
 
As I posted many times - they should do one as a zoom meeting so they can mute people and have one speaker at a time - it's a pandemic after all and the rest of us are living on zoom meetings and seeing that set with the staff and techies there, that's too many people under a roof

you can stream zoom meetings to Facebook and anywhere else

or at least cut out the mic's -

I do think Biden should have looked at the camera more to talk and just ignored him - but really, what else would you do (other than Hink's idea, which I love and would have been such a Biden thing to do) when you have that guy next to you yammering into everything

unfortunately, it has rallied Trump's weird and scary base as that behavior is how they act in their own lives

I think they need a strong boisterous woman to moderate next time - I loved that Chris Wallace was seeking to ask clarification on issues but Trump isn't able to have an intellectual conversation - not sure who that is as I type this
 
President Trump played Biden like a fiddle. You knew what you were going to get with the President. I thought if Biden just stood there, smirked whenever something ridiculous was said and then talked in even tones about what his views are and the facts he'd come out the clear winner. Sadly we all lost with that debacle last night.

I don't feel sorry for Chris Wallace at all. He's been a tool for years and he was woefully unprepared to handle the duty that was given to him.
 
You take away Trump's ability to interrupt and he's got nothing in a debate.

Holding a debate without almost any enforcement of the rules, especially when that kind of interruption has a disproportionate impact on one party, who is dealing with a stutter, is patently unfair.

We are also now at the point where a sitting president used some of his debate time to call on a violent white supremacist group to "stand by." Just because they have a dumb name from a song in Aladdin doesn't make it any less bad than if he had called on the KKK to do the same. This isn't "politics," anymore, really. This is the beginning of the US becoming one of those collapsing countries we all used to hear about on NPR in the late 80's and early 90's.
 
I was watching Kim's Convenience on NetFlix and after a few episodes I switched the input over to the cable and was about to turn the TV. In the 10 seconds that the TV was on NBC I swear I heard Trump say to Biden, "You're a number 2!" 🤦‍♂️
 
I watched Harry Potter with the daughter. Much more productive. I really didn't need to see the pres tell a racist group to stand by.
 
Hink said:
Wow. All I got is wow. I feel like Biden should have just said, is this what you want for for four more year, over and over again.

Not a fan of calling the President a clown or to shut up.

President was so unpresidential and childish, I was actually surprised... which surprised me that I was surprised by how childish he was.

Two more of these to go...
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I skipped over to MSNBC where three women (Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow, and Nicolle Wallace) were exchanging comments. There was some cross-talk, but essentially it was calm, respectful, and you could hear what each person said. Here's some of it.

Trump destroys another American civic institution with debate

Here's another good snippet.

Maddow: 'This sort of debate shouldn't happen in a democracy.'
 
Donald Trump ensures first presidential debate is national humiliation
www.theguardian.com

Trump ensures first presidential debate is national humiliation | Analysis

Only one man looked remotely presidential on the debate stage in Cleveland, Ohio, and it was not the incumbent
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com


What a line -
“President Trump wouldn’t know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn.”
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Last sentence says it all -
The near universal verdict was - expressed in the words of CNN’s political correspondent Dana Bash – a “shitshow”.
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dw914er said:
We live in a strange world; I am amazed by the number of Trump supporters that have rationalized the information Trump's taxes.
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I am NOT an Orange Menace supporter, but maybe people are finally catching a clue that the tax code is written by rich people for the benefit of rich people. I sort of explain it to people in terms of a video game: you have to do certain things in order to level up and every time you level up there are more perks that vast majority of Americans will never be able to take advantage of.

The sad part is that if you are a lower income household claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit you are more likely to be audited by the IRS than a high earning/high net worth household.
 
I have no issue with rich people using the tax code to not pay taxes. If I were able to I would do the same thing. My issue is with the tax code that allows people that make a hell of a lot more than me pay a hell of a lot less than me. As a rich person I wouldn't like it, but I could at least say it's fair. I always though taxes should be be a gradual curve up instead of a bell curve.
 
I did not watch the first debate, and have no intention of watching the other two. With such a small percentage of independent voters being undecided at this point, it's hard to see the debates being consequential (other than to make everyone who watches them feel depressed apparently). I watched some of the 2016 debates hoping to see more discussion on actual policy, and in a few instances the primary debates were successful at that, but even those were often hard to watch.

What a sad state of affairs that the two parties are no longer able to engage in any sort of civil discourse. After last night's debate, I assume the next few weeks will be some of the ugliest in political ads and soundbytes, so for my own sanity I'm trying to tune as much of it out as possible. The only silver lining I can see is that people might start to shift more of their attention towards state and local elections while national politics remains this polarized (although I'm not at all sure that will happen).
 
I intentionally watched none of the debate. Don't need to raise my blood pressure more than necessary, after all. I figured I'd read the headlines tomorrow and they report pretty much what I guessed would happen. What is clear is that Trump did not score a win, and being well behind in virtually every poll in a number of key electoral states, he needed desperately to score a decisive win last night and that evidently didn't happen. Most convincing evidence that's the case is when shameless Fox & Friends shills express disappointment with Trump's performance. The first Presidential debate is always the one that has the most impact. So even if it were a draw that would still be a win for Biden. I don't imagine last night's debate (and certainly any subsequent debate) will move the needle one way or the other.
 
The PDC says that they are going to tweak the debate format because of last night's shitshow. Why would anyone think Trump will follow new rules, especially after last night?
 
Just a quick thought...

I prayed that Biden would say something, anything, to help me get a gimmer of hope that I might be able to stomach voting for him.

That never happened.

Instead, I sat there like most Americans in total disbelief during almost 100 minutes chaos. They both avoided answers, and yes, Trump's disrespect was intolerable, but as I stated before, there was zero chance I was going to vote for him. The only question remained was should I vote for Biden, or a 3rd party. Right now, the 3rd party is leading in my book, and I don't even know who they are.
 
DVD said:
As much as I appreciate the idea of a 3rd party, if it's not a vote for Biden it's a vote for Trump.
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Maybe so. But I don't know if I can look at myself in the mirror if I vote for Biden. He showed NOTHING last night. NOTHING. So disheartening.
 
The next Presidential Debate should just be Fight Club.

(but don't talk about it)
 
It's an insult to clowns I tell you! A clown would have made for a much more entertaining debate. I mean how do you argue with a clown without looking like an idiot yourself?
 
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