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  1. #15121
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steel Inquisitor View Post
    Intriguing. Rather than respond with a full throated robust argument about Sanders ideology with reasons why you think they're superior you doubled down on tearing the opposition down. They've been helping people since they got elected, but that comes with limitations since the GOP have more power than they do. Something you avoid acknowledging, as that weakens your context.

    Are you even a socialist?

    Your defence is that America is in a stronger position because of the coronavirus? Ok.

    You'd be getting the least amount with Sanders, too, as I've explained. But we both know this would dilute your argument that Sanders is going to change the system by himself.



    That you think this is a joke is very telling.
    Let me ask you one. more. time.

    Tell me Steel, what can voters expect once Democrats take power if they do. What are they going to do to help people?
    We've had the house since 2018, and what have they actually done to help us? Had this virus not come along, we wouldn't have even gotten these crumbs.

  2. #15122
    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Navy expected to relieve captain who raised alarm about COVID-19 outbreak on aircraft carrier

    The Navy is expected to announce it has relieved the captain who sounded the alarm about an outbreak of COVID-19 aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, according to two U.S. officials.
    Capt. Brett Crozier, who commands the Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier with a crew of nearly 5,000, will be relieved of his command, but keep his rank and remain in the Navy.

    Crozier raised the alarm earlier this week that sailors on the ship need to be quarantined to stop the spread of the virus. His plea for assistance quickly made headlines.

    Crozier sent a letter to the Navy on Monday begging for help addressing the coronavirus outbreak aboard his ship, which was forced to dock in Guam last week. The ship leadership began testing everyone on board. By Wednesday, there were 93 positive test results and more than 1,000 people had departed the ship into isolation on Guam. In total, 2,700 people are expected to disembark the ship this week, with a smaller crew remaining to maintain the ship.
    The move is expected to be announced in a briefing by Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly Thursday evening. The official reason for Crozier's relief of duty is a loss of trust and confidence, according to the officials who spoke to NBC News
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  3. #15123
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    So being originally from Boston, there was an interesting story going on about how Robert Kraft, the owner of my football team the Patriots, helped MA and NYC secure around 100k masks for medical personal.

    Here’s more context that makes this story so much crazier...

    https://www.universalhub.com/2020/ba...hose-masks-try

    At his daily press conference today, Gov. Baker said he managed to keep all those Chinese N95 masks out of federal hands by calling their shipment a "private humanitarian mission" and enlisting the help of the Kraft family, who sent their football team's jet over to China to pick them up.

    Meanwhile, state officials said Massachusetts has yet to receive any of the 1,000 ventilators the feds had earlier promised Baker Massachusetts would get. Despite that the state yesterday upped its request for ventilators it may never get to 1,400. "We've not yet received any ventilators," Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said.

    Baker said that after that the state had ordered 3 million masks through BJs, only to have the federal government seize them as they sat in the port of New York awaiting shipment here, he began a desperate search to find more masks. He said he called pretty much everybody he knew to see if they had any connections overseas that might be able to help Massachusetts get more N95 masks - even people at the state's cultural institutions, because many of them have overseas ties.

    He said he finally found a company in China that had masks to sell.

    But he said he didn't want to risk another federal seizure, so he called Jonathan Kraft to talk about how to arrange a "private humanitarian mission" to pick up the masks - and get them to Massachusetts.

    He said Kraft and his father, Robert, "were terrific" and immediately went to work arranging the logistics - which involved sending the Patriots jet to Shenzen, China to pick up the masks.

    He also said China's ambassador to the UN played a critical role in getting the permissions needed to arrange the purchase and shipment. Even the governor of Alaska helped out, by arranging for the plane to land there so the crew could rest on the way back with the masks.

    Sudders said the bulk of the masks are scheduled to arrive at Logan Airport later today - with part of the shipment going to New York City and Rhode Island. A panel of medical experts will then determine how to dole them out. Institutions with a high need because they are already dealing with large numbers of Covid-19 patients, such as certain hospitals, will get priority, as well as other institutions that have less than a five-day supply of the masks.

    The Patriots jet crew had to leave about 500,000 masks behind - they wouldn't fit on the plane - but those are supposed to be shipped here later.

    Baker added the state will also get additional help by Monday, when Partners Healthcare plans to start up an N95 disinfecting system, in an abandoned Kmart in Somerville, that can disinfect up to 80,000 masks a day. The masks can be cycled through the system, which uses concentrated hydrogen-peroxide vapors, up to five times, according to its manufacturer.
    TLDR: The federal government is SO inept at helping states receive equipment they need, that a state governor cut a deal with a foreign country and secretly conspired with a football team to go on a covert flight to secure the masks under the federal governments noses because they were convinced that if they found out about it, they would seize the much needed medical equipment and it would be wasted.

  4. #15124
    Invincible Member numberthirty's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by KNIGHT OF THE LAKE View Post
    He was in a room full of billionaire donors assuring them “nothing will fundamentally change”
    The obvious question here is...

    "Just How Much Does A Politician Have To Work In The Interest Of 'Big Money' Before You Will Even Attempt To Entertain The Idea That He Works For Them First And For The Voter At A Distant Second?"

    Seems like a lot of folks can't even bring themselves to discuss it. Let alone seriously consider it.

  5. #15125
    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Banks warn of 'utter chaos' in new small business lending program

    Millions of small businesses are anxiously awaiting their slices of a $350 billion relief program that forms part of the government's $2 trillion economic support package. However, with just hours to go before the launch, major banks are still awaiting guidance from the Treasury Department — and some still haven't even decided whether they will participate.

    In a strongly worded statement, one of the nation's biggest lenders said the much-touted relief program for small business owners wasn't ready for prime time.

    "Financial institutions like ours are still awaiting guidance from the SBA and the U.S. Treasury," Chase Bank said in an email to business customers, referring to the Small Business Administration. "As a result, Chase will most likely not be able to start accepting applications on Friday, April 3rd, as we had hoped."
    However, as recently as Wednesday night, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, the point person for the nation's top bankers for the measure, had a private phone call with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to go through the plan line by line, senior banking executives told NBC News.

    While Bank of America is cautiously optimistic, JPMorgan has expressed less confidence, according to senior sources.

    The vacuum in guidance has left banking executives scrambling to cobble together a massive small business assistance program from scratch.
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  6. #15126
    Invincible Member Kirby101's Avatar
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    Obama had a Dem majority for only 2 years, in that time he, rescued the Economy, passed major banking regulation, passed major Healthcare overhaul, rescued the auto industry, signed the Paris Accord, made major environmental regulations...People forget he was saddled with a GOP Congress for 6 of his years. And this doesn't even address the assault on Gay, Rights, Abortion, and Rights ion general by thee GOP>
    You only have to compare ANY Dem Administration to a Repub one and then you won't ask, Why vote for Dems.
    There came a time when the Old Gods died! The Brave died with the Cunning! The Noble perished locked in battle with unleashed Evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!

  7. #15127
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    As a retired Navy man, I found this infuriating. Captain Crozier should get a commendation for having sounded the alarm about the threat of COVID-19 on his ship instead of being relieved. Loss of trust and confidence? From who? Trump? That makes zero sense. And if anyone thinks what happened on the Roosevelt was an isolated case, they’re kidding themselves, a highly contagious virus spreading on ships where social distancing is impossible could raise havoc in the fleet.
    Avatar: Here's to the late, great Steve Dillon. Best. Punisher. Artist. EVER!

  8. #15128
    Invincible Member Kirby101's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    As a retired Navy man, I found this infuriating. Captain Crozier should get a commendation for having sounded the alarm about the threat of COVID-19 on his ship instead of being relieved. Loss of trust and confidence? From who? Trump? That makes zero sense. And if anyone thinks what happened on the Roosevelt was an isolated case, they’re kidding themselves, a highly contagious virus spreading on ships where social distancing is impossible could raise havoc in the fleet.
    Acting Secretary of the Navy, acting because can't get confirmed even by the GOP Senate. Trump toady.
    There came a time when the Old Gods died! The Brave died with the Cunning! The Noble perished locked in battle with unleashed Evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!

  9. #15129
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheDarman View Post
    Because if I just called all these a lie instead of a mischaracterization or seizing on a particular thing that was clearly not meant as intended, I’d have to say it about most of the stuff posted here about Biden. Going to such a strong word to describe something would imply malicious intent and the clear motivation to deceive. In reality? I think both you and he don’t like the nuance regarding your criticisms of the candidate you don’t prefer.
    The thing is, you don't have to lie to make Biden look terrible, his record speaks for itself, and I have still not heard a single rebuttal as to why pointing out all of Biden's failings is a mischaracterization, only that we all just need to shut up and vote for him if we want to beat Trump.

  10. #15130
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheDarman View Post
    More like a mischaracterization of his record. He has been on record saying that he likes a number of the things Socialist dictators have done. I wouldn’t exactly have that be translated to support. But Sanders supporters have also said that Biden wanted to “cut” Social Security, which definitely does mischaracterize Biden’s record on the issue, too. Is it hyperbolic? Sure. Misleading? Absolutely. An outright lie? Not really—there is a nugget of truth buried there.
    Sanders record in criticising left wing dictatorships is abysmal. He needed to be in a really small corner before he'll begin to bring up how bad they are. He wouldn't shut up about Castro's Cuba being good for days to multiple media outlets, despite anchors like Anderson Cooper giving him soft ball questions about it. It's crazy when the first thing he does when the Cold War is bought up is attack America first. It's like he has trouble admitting that both sides are very bad, but no, one side has to be "good" and he picks the dictatorships. This is why he gets side eye from people over how sympathetic he is too Communists - and it helps with his fanatical followers to give the right langauge that he's secretly "one of them."

  11. #15131
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    Quote Originally Posted by KNIGHT OF THE LAKE View Post
    So being originally from Boston, there was an interesting story going on about how Robert Kraft, the owner of my football team the Patriots, helped MA and NYC secure around 100k masks for medical personal.

    Here’s more context that makes this story so much crazier...

    https://www.universalhub.com/2020/ba...hose-masks-try



    TLDR: The federal government is SO inept at helping states receive equipment they need, that a state governor cut a deal with a foreign country and secretly conspired with a football team to go on a covert flight to secure the masks under the federal governments noses because they were convinced that if they found out about it, they would seize the much needed medical equipment and it would be wasted.
    Okay, I saw a picture earlier of the Patriot's plane with a caption saying it had just delivered masks, and I was baffled because I thought the Military should be doing that. Seeing now that they had to do an end run around the government so that they wouldn't seize the masks- bravo to all involved.

    The story has been updated. They relieved him of duty, but he did keep his rank.

  12. #15132
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    I've posted this before, but if the Gore campaign had gotten what they wanted (a recount limited to heavily democratic counties) it wouldn't have found enough votes to alter the results.

    https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/31/polit...sults-studies/

    The first major review
    The players: A group of newspapers including the USA Today, Miami Herald, and Knight Ridder newspapers conducted the first major review of the Florida ballots.

    How it worked: The group hired the accounting firm BDO Seidman to examine more than 60,000 "undervotes" -- ballots that did not register a vote in the presidential race -- from all 67 Florida counties. These were ballots the Florida Supreme Court ordered to be hand counted with its December 8, 2000, decision.

    The newspapers applied BDO Seidman's findings to four vote-counting standards. This was published in April 2001.

    The results: The study shows that Bush likely would have won the statewide recount of undervotes even if the U.S. Supreme Court had not intervened to stop the counting. It also reveals that, ironically, the most lenient standard of vote counting —advocated by Gore — gives Bush his biggest lead. However, USA Today cautioned that, "The study has limitations. There is variability in what different observers see on ballots. Election officials, who sorted the undervotes for examination and then handled them for the accountants' inspection, often did not provide exactly the same number of undervotes recorded on election night."
    https://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/th...count-of-2000/
    According to a massive months-long study commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001, George W. Bush probably still would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Florida’s highest court.

    Bush also probably would have won had the state conducted the limited recount of only four heavily Democratic counties that Al Gore asked for, the study found.
    Gore might have been able to win with a legal strategy his campaign never pursued (to count every undervote and overvote in the state) although he could have also won with a slightly better campaign, so that the result in Florida wasn't a coin toss (alternatively, with a better campaign he might have won New Hampshire, Nevada, West Virginia, or his home state of Tennessee, any of which would have been enough to win 270+ electoral votes.)
    The Supreme Court did not alter the outcome of the election.

    There have been arguments on the board about the design of the butterfly ballot, but that's not something that should be determined by a court. The designer of the infamous Butterfly ballot was a Democrat who wanted to make something more legible for elderly voters.

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=122175&page=1
    Last edited by Conn Seanery; 04-03-2020 at 06:22 AM.
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    Thomas Mets

  13. #15133
    Mighty Member TheDarman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    The thing is, you don't have to lie to make Biden look terrible, his record speaks for itself, and I have still not heard a single rebuttal as to why pointing out all of Biden's failings is a mischaracterization, only that we all just need to shut up and vote for him if we want to beat Trump.
    Does it really though? Because independent evaluation of his record by political scientists demonstrates that Biden has consistently fallen in the center of the party. That is to say, in short, Biden has been pretty consistently to the left of the coalition, though certainly not as far left as Sanders. You can make the argument his record is mixed, but I don’t understand the argument of being “terrible”.

    I also feel like I have done a pretty consistent job of trying to make sure that we can accurately discuss these issues with his record. I don’t think we are actually hurting Biden any if we discuss his record in actuality. It will be used in the general where it can and the places it can’t should be litigated in a primary. I just think that a number of items that have been weaponized against him are lacking appropriate context and/or sufficient evidence of being problematic.
    With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility

    Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  14. #15134
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    I've posted this before, but if the Gore campaign had gotten what they wanted (a recount limited to heavily democratic counties) it wouldn't have found enough votes to alter the results.
    That's because the real focus of the Republican party is to disenfranchise black voters before any recount can happen, including in Florida.

    I've posted this before as well if only to point out that you continue to support a party you know thrives on racism and homophobia.

    -----
    "Florida GOP Takes Voter Suppression to a Brazen New Extreme"

    Imagine this: a Republican governor in a crucial battleground state instructs his secretary of state to purge the voting rolls of hundreds of thousands of allegedly ineligible voters.

    The move disenfranchises thousands of legally registered voters, who happen to be overwhelmingly black and Hispanic Democrats. The number of voters prevented from casting a ballot exceeds the margin of victory in the razor-thin election, which ends up determining the next President of the United States.

    If this scenario sounds familiar, that’s because it happened in Florida in 2000. And twelve years later, just months before another presidential election, history is repeating itself.

    Back in 2000, 12,000 eligible voters – a number twenty-two times larger than George W. Bush’s 537 vote triumph over Al Gore – were wrongly identified as convicted felons and purged from the voting rolls in Florida, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. African Americans, who favored Gore over Bush by 86 points, accounted for 11 percent of the state’s electorate but 41 percent of those purged.

    Jeb Bush attempted a repeat performance in 2004 to help his brother win reelection but was forced to back off in the face of a public outcry. Yet with another close election looming, Florida Republicans have returned to their voter-scrubbing ways...


    https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...xtreme-184830/
    Last edited by aja_christopher; 04-02-2020 at 08:18 PM.

  15. #15135
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheDarman View Post
    Does it really though? Because independent evaluation of his record by political scientists demonstrates that Biden has consistently fallen in the center of the party. That is to say, in short, Biden has been pretty consistently to the left of the coalition, though certainly not as far left as Sanders. You can make the argument his record is mixed, but I don’t understand the argument of being “terrible”.

    I also feel like I have done a pretty consistent job of trying to make sure that we can accurately discuss these issues with his record. I don’t think we are actually hurting Biden any if we discuss his record in actuality. It will be used in the general where it can and the places it can’t should be litigated in a primary. I just think that a number of items that have been weaponized against him are lacking appropriate context and/or sufficient evidence of being problematic.
    Even leaving aside all the stuff with Anita Hill or the crime bill or his friendship with Strom Thurmond, Biden's primary function as a politician has always been to carry water for his real constituents - the banking sector in Delaware, and he's as responsible as anyone for turning it basically into the onshore tax haven it is today. It's funny that he keeps trying to cast himself as this sort of blue collar Midwestern good ole boy, because for one thing, there is no great love for Biden here and you're probably more likely to find a diehard Trump supporter than a Biden loyalist, and for another, we're not a Midwestern state! A rich coastal state like Delaware has nothing in common with middle America aside from a general reputation for being boring and uninspiring, and if Biden isn't able to connect with the people who know him best, what chance does he have with the rest of the country?

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