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ewsieg

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Posts posted by ewsieg

  1. 30 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

    The only problem here is Trump received significantly more money from billionaires than Harris. 

    Oh, than let me fix your previous statement now that I have clarification.

    2 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

    Weird how both parties support elite corporate interests and yet elite corporate interests favor Democrats, with the exception of the richest billionaire, so therefore I can still claim the Democrats are the party of the working man (and most of the elite corporate interests) and continue to argue without any facts that elite corporate interests favors Republicans.

     

     

  2. 36 minutes ago, GalagaGuy said:

    The Deputy Director of the FBI makes something around 170k per year.  Bongino came to the realization that he's losing out on that sweet podcast money by having a government job and has been looking for a reason to quit without looking like a chump.   If he does quit and maintains the support of the cult, I could see Patel doing the same.  

    Hopefully his followers realize he was always full of crap and that podcast money dries up too.

  3. 27 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

    Yeah because it was Elon Musk funding Harris campaign. Biden was the first president in decades to grow the middle class and the billionaires **** a brick. 

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/10/30/kamala-harris-has-more-billionaires-prominently-backing-her-than-trump-bezos-and-griffin-weigh-in-updated/

    Billionaires never **** a brick, they know everyone works for them, regardless of the letter next to their name.

    • Arthur Blank (Atlanta Falcons)
    • Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg, former New York mayor)
    • Neil Bluhm (Real estate)
    • John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins)
    • Amy Goldman Fowler (New York real estate)
    • Avram Glazer (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
    • Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn)
    • Robert Hale, Jr. (Granite Telecommunications)
    • Amos Hostetter, Jr. (Cable)
    • Bruce Karsh (Oaktree Capital Management)
    • Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures)
    • Seth Klarman (Baupost)
    • Henry Laufer (Renaissance Technologies)
    • Stephen Mandel, Jr. (Lone Pine Capital)
    • George Marcus (Marcus & Millichap)
    • Michael Moritz (Sequoia Capital)
    • Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook)
    • John Pritzker (Hyatt hotels)
    • Haim Saban (Fox Family Channel)
    • Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook)
    • Eric Schmidt (Google)
    • Lynn Schusterman (Samson Resources)
    • David Shaw (D.E. Shaw)
    • The late Jim Simons (Renaissance Technologies)
    • Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer (Cargill)
    • Steven Spielberg (Hollywood director)
    • Thomas Steyer (Farallon Capital)
    • Pat Stryker (Stryker Corp.)
    • David Blitzer (Blackstone)
    • David Bonderman (TPG)
    • Edythe Broad (Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation)
    • Tory Burch (Tory Burch)
    • Rick Caruso (Los Angeles real estate)
    • James Chambers (Cox Enterprises)
    • Robert Clark (Clayco)
    • Barry Diller (IAC)
    • Dagmar Dolby (Dolby Laboratories)
    • Charles Ergen (DISH)
    • John Fish (Suffolk Construction)
    • Gordon Getty (Getty Oil)
    • James Goodnight (SAS)
    • Jonathan Gray (Blackstone)
    • Thomas Hagen (Erie Indemnity)
    • Reed Hastings (Netflix)
    • Elizabeth Johnson (Fidelity Investments)
    • Michael Krasny (Computer Discount Warehouse)
    • Chris Larsen (Ripple)
    • Marc Lasry (Avenue Capital Group)
    • Theodore Leonsis (Washington Capitals, Mystics and Wizards)
    • Daniel Och (Och-Ziff Capital Management)
    • Mark Pincus (Zynga)
    • Laurene Powell Jobs (Apple, gave about $900,000 to Harris Victory Fund last quarter)
    • Katharine Rayner (Cox Enterprises)
    • Stewart Resnick and Lynda Resnick (Wonderful Company)
    • John Sall (SAS)
    • Paul Sciarra (Pinterest)
    • George Soros (Soros Fund Management)
    • Jonathan Tisch and Laurie Tisch (Loews Corporation)
    • Todd Wagner (Broadcast.com)
    • Christy Walton (Walmart)
    • Elaine Wynn (Wynn Resorts)
    • Dirk Ziff (Ziff Davis).
    • Melinda French Gates (Microsoft, gave about $900,000 to Harris Victory Fund last quarter)
    • Joe Gebbia (Airbnb)
    • Hamilton James (Blackstone)
    • Margot Perot (Ross Perot widow).
    • Mark Cuban (“Shark Tank” investor)
    • José E. Feliciano (Clearlake Capital)
    • Magic Johnson (NBA star and investor)
    • Sean Parker (Facebook)
    • Penny Pritzker (Hyatt hotels)
    • Hamdi Ulukaya (Chobani).
    • Tim Draper (Bitcoin)
    • J.B. Pritzker (Illinois governor)
    • Tyler Perry (Filmmaker).
    • Like 1
  4. 1 hour ago, Motown Bombers said:

    Weird how both parties support elite corporate interests and yet elite corporate interests favor Republicans. 

    That's exactly what Democrats want their ardent supporters to think.

  5. So I never believed the grand conspiracies regarding Epstein that he had a list or that there was this large group of pedo's and Epstein was going to be used to bring them all down.  The fact that the Prince Andrew stuff got out to me signifies that Epstein and Andrew liked young girls and that was probably it.  They used their fame and money to 'hide in plain sight' around other rich and famous people.  

    All that said, the plea deal in Florida was shady.  Was it just because he had high powered friends?  Possibly.  But as noted by others here, who is going to stand up and defend a guy that was caught with this type of behavior?  There was a single reporter that said Acosta claimed Epstein 'belonged to the CIA', and as far as I know he's never denied that either, just responded with a cheeky 'I've heard that reported, but that doesn't mean it's a fact'.  

    Again, it's not beyond the scope that a state AG dropped the ball and let him get a sweetheart plea deal.  We've seen Nessell screw up plenty of times and at least in this forum she's probably considered one of the best.  

    The logical next step though, at least to me, would be to publish a list of actual facts and an overview of the investigation and why ultimately they didn't believe any names they had belonged on a 'list'.  Maybe Trump knew his followers wouldn't react well with that and just told Bondi/Patel to just state it and hope it breezes over.  Maybe Bondi/Patel realized how bad a report would be if they dispelled everything they used to help Trump get elected in the first place.   But the little bit of conspiracy theory I have for this, it had names of people in both parties and other high level people that they have no proof even knew about Epstein's proclivity towards kids that were in the files simply because Epstein, just like those people on 'the list', love the spotlight and love being around other rich and famous people, but the association with Epstein will hurt them.   

  6. Just finished Ice Road - Vengeance.  This is a part II actually.  A co-worker dared me to watch the first one and we've thrown conspiracy theory ideas to each other since about if it's just a bad movie OR an absolutely brilliant movie in that they went out of their way to make it such a horrible movie.  My buddy felt Vengeance didn't live up to the first one, but I disagree, it was absolutely horrible.  Still not sold that the movie is brilliant though.  Regardless, 9/10, will probably watch as soon as I con my son into watching a movie with me.

  7. 20 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

    Not much of a Black Sabbath or Ozzy fan here, but I guess it was a triumphant night for their last show and I wouldn't be shocked at all if Ozzy shuffled off this mortal coil in the next few days. 

    I was told the opening bands were fantastic, but watching Ozzy was just sad.  Saw some clips on Twitter and it seemed alright.  Jason Mamoa stomping around the mosh pit for Pantera was actually pretty cool.

  8. I'm actually all for Elon doing this.  Short term, I see it hurting republicans more, but I do think that depending on the issue, you could see both parties seeing and ultimately addressing concerns.  Most people write off third parties, but generally the reason why they don't work is before they can get too big, one or both of the current major parties recognize a few good points from them and adopt them into their own fold.  

    I don't have much hope for it, but it's not my money, so take a swing Elon.

     

    • Like 1
  9. On 7/4/2025 at 9:38 AM, RatkoVarda said:

    when (probably if) Dems are ever back in the White House, I think they will try (yet again) to help rural communities, like they have been for decades, and those communities will despise them for it and vote harder for MAGA

    Not sure why someone would despise you for trying to help them, but that's what you see with urban communities when republicans (pre-trump) tried to help them, so you could be right.   Trump has done everything you'd expect from someone writing them off and actually is getting a bigger portion of votes so you got a point.

    The above is said kind of in jest.  I'm not saying dems didn't try to help rural areas, nor that republicans didn't either, but what I said is both failed.  Ultimately both were fine with rural areas subsidizing their brightest students towards urban areas.  

  10. 3 hours ago, mtutiger said:

    I believe in due process and believe that sending people who aren't from South Sudan to South Sudan is a bunch of bull****. Regardless of whatever the Supreme Court, of Trump v. US fame, thinks. 

    How long do you think South Sudan holds them once Trump decides he doesn't want to pay the bill?

    Galaga doesn't realize due process isn't just about criminal, it's about the victims too.  If someone murders or rapes someone close to me, I want my day in court with them, regardless of what country they are from.  I want them to pay for their crimes they committed here and I want the punishment in my country where if bail or something like that comes up, I have a voice that matters still.  

    Additionally I'm not 1st amendment auditor type, but I have been interested in some of their videos and they do have a point about needing to protect peoples rights and right now it's clear that there are people that should not be detained, getting detained, sometimes for months at a time before being released.  Our government, back when some people would say it was great, was built on principles from William Blackstone, who penned the famous line "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer".

  11. 6 hours ago, mtutiger said:

    The way this is going to mess with Medicaid is going to cause a lot of stress, and it will absolutely result in hospitals in rural areas closing. That's pretty much baked in.

    God have mercy on their souls, because I do not.

    Kind of agree, kind of don't.  Hate to see someone suffer, even if you can point back to Trump and feel like they caused it.  The fact is, political leaders of both parties and all state and all federal levels never found a good solution to help rural America when we switched to a service economy.  Trump is their riot.  A lot of republicans looked at issues with minorities and saw their riots and were fine saying "Whelp, they did it to themselves."  I suspect democrats as a whole will do the same if we do indeed see rural communities suffer more.  Would be nice if someone broke the cycle and tried to help instead of ignore.

  12. 4 hours ago, chasfh said:

    All due respect, most of the rest of us could see very clearly that it was always coming to this, that it was only about the super rich getting the money and the rest of us getting the shaft. How many recent “respectable” Republican presidents (and Clinton) provided the uber-rich generous tax cuts while ballooning the deficit at the same time? It’s true—you can easily look it up. Here, I’ll even get you started on the first one: https://www.cbpp.org/research/the-legacy-of-the-2001-and-2003-bush-tax-cuts.

    The main thing that makes the Trump tax cuts different is that added feature of cruelty to poor people for sport.

    The tax rate change is the least offensive part of this bill and cutting taxes does not correlate to deficit in a vacuum.  Had to look up the numbers to refresh my memory after seeing in your link that the Bush tax cuts increased debt by 5.6 trillion by 2018, but the Bush tax cuts were part of his campaign that he saw through, despite 9/11 which increased our military spending of 5.8 trillion which is what we spent on Iraq/Afghanistan.  Granted that didn't end until 2021, but i'm guessing most of that money was spent between 2001-2018, likely making it a wash.  Should Bush have moved forward with another tax cut in 2003, probably not, but if not for those wars, sounds like Bush's legacy would have included that he may have had a small deficit or surplus and essentially plateau our debt.   GDP expanded under bush by roughly 4 trillion a year, so as a percent of debt Bush would have dropped that from 54.5% to 39.9% if 9/11 never happens.  

    This definitely is going to be cruel, but not just to the poor either.  Rural middle class and wealthy, aka Trump voters, will realize that good medical insurance doesn't matter if you don't have a hospital near you.  

    Right now my biggest concern might be related to AI.  I do think whoever leads in AI, especially early on, will have better outcome on whatever an AI driven world looks like.  We started in the pole position with the largest economy, with the best higher education, and the best minds (from all over the world) that want to learn here.  The federal law enforcement money gives a clear indication that even if you want to come here to learn, you're not really welcome.  We may still allow student visas, but we're not welcoming.  AI is going to require energy.  A lot of it.  Add in despite what Trump is doing, electric vehicles are the future, it might slow down, but they are the future still.  So we really need to increase our energy and this bill does so much to **** on renewables, not just promote them anymore, but to actively discourage them.  This is what is going to hurt the next generation, the only question is how much.

     

     

    • Thanks 1
  13. As a fiscal conservative, I have never been against a bill that might cause pain, if it could provide a clear path to helping set up the next generation for success.  This is the exact opposite of that.  I purposefully tried to find conservative media's take on this and for the ones that talked about the nuts and bolts of this bill and not just the republican talking points, none of them liked this.  Absolutely horrid.

     

  14. Took my daughter to see The Stray Kids, a kpop band, in Toronto this past weekend.  Certainly not my kind of music, but not horrible.  (Maybe the lyrics are, I have no idea).  It was her Christmas present and she loved it, so that's all good.  It was at Rogers Stadium and this was the first concert there.  It's a temporary venue on the grounds of the old airport.  I got a hotel right next to Rogers Center (skydome).....oops.  Still worked out though.

  15. 18 hours ago, romad1 said:

    The Mad King phase has been pretty frightening. 

    Oh man, this brings back quite a memory I had dealing with a federal agency as they were blaming us (AT&T competitor - always blame the network first!) for their video conferencing woes.  Finally they added us to an all hands a few weeks later so we can experience it and check in real time.  Around the 300 user mark a pop up came on stating 'you are about to reach the maximum number of participants for a standard team meeting, please utilize a view only conference if you expect to pass 300 people.  They eventually got to about 1200 users before buffering started, network was running smooth.  We spent the rest of the day getting chewed out and turned over all of our data.  Late that evening the following troubleshooting call scheduled to start bright and early was cancelled, we never heard about issues related to large web conferences again.  

    I can guarantee, AT&T's problem or not, about 15 people at AT&T had horrible days yesterday.

  16. Thinking about this a bit on a much nicer dog walk this evening after we got some rain today and regime change is a must, am I wrong?  If our intel, not Israel's, but what is being reported about our Intel, that 1) they weren't looking to create nuclear weapons and even if they were, they were years away and 2) that we likely only sent them back 3-6 months, then the best thing for the current power structure in Iran to do is to bow to Trump and let him take his victory lap as he tries to claim he brought world peace.  Meanwhile, they have already discussed and determined that now is the time to go full speed ahead on a weapon, right?  That gives them 3 years under Trump to get it while he ignores it because ignoring it will make his base feel it's not an issue.

    And don't get me wrong, I was extremely hesitant of any action in Iran because of Iraq.  Yes I used to have grandiose ideas of what great things could come out of Arab Spring, but I've seen the results.  This just seems like such a bad spot for the world.  Please someone tell me I'm wrong...I want to be wrong.

  17. 2 hours ago, guy incognito said:

    Stable Genius at Work

     

    IMG_3869.jpeg

    To be honest, this was the first time I felt like he was acting 'presidentially'.  Maybe I should change that to say this is the first time I felt like he was talking honestly.   Don't get me wrong, I will acknowledge every point of what he did wrong that possibly could have been prevented us from getting into this predicament in the first place.  But, based on his response, I do think he felt he had an understanding with Israel that if the US helped, they would stop.  He's weak though and Netanyahu took advantage of us.  Ultimately this all falls on his feet. 

    This is Trump's war.

  18. 3 hours ago, RatkoVarda said:

    The similarities between Iraq and Iran are striking.

    The similarities are striking.

    One glaring difference is that while in hindsight we were aware of differing opinions on WMDs with Sadam due to many different variables, our Intel thought he had them.

    Our Intel now says Iran is not even pursuing WMD's, let alone have them.  And honestly the only real pushback i've seen towards Trump are from a few conservatives and the 3 or 4 folks in the house on the Dem side that don't like siding with Israel on anything.  As a whole, seems like most are good with the fact that Trump is ignoring his own Intelligence because of Netanyahu's gut feeling.

  19. I worked dial-up Internet for quite awhile and a majority portion of that was well after it's prime years.  I did everything I could to automate myself out of that job or train others to take it over.  I assumed I was going to get laid off eventually anyway, just like every other person I worked with (400+ folks in Ann Arbor, eventually down to 5 of us in our Southfield location).  Because I was able to decrease my workload, I found myself helping other teams with their work but was still needed as there were only two of us that knew how to manage the network all the way through.  Both of us are still with the company in different roles.  He does a better job of taking time off now.  I don't have the concerns anymore in terms of being swamped with work when I come back (team picks up the slack when I'm gone, as I do when a co-worker takes time off).  Still ingrained to me that taking time off impacts other people and hate that feeling.  My boss regularly yells at me when I say i'm taking a day off but jump on for a meeting that i'd prefer not to miss.  

  20. You obviously read the summarized version of the Bible.  In the full story, Jesus flipped over the tables of the heretics.  He was totally cool with the profiteers if they claimed they aligned with Jesus' teachings or sold prepper style products.

    • Haha 1
  21. 1 hour ago, oblong said:

    He's not.  But he's also not stupid.  He was playing a role all these years on Fox.  But if you go back to his early crossfire days he wasn't like that... plus there's the whole thing where he was playing nice with Hunter Biden back when his kid needed something. It's a game to Tucker.  But he knows the reality. He doesn't deserve respect or the benefit of the doubt but he is capable of being correct when he wants to portray that.  Why he's doing it now, who knows.  Motivations are fair to question when he's had the career he's had.

    You are 100% spot on with Tucker.  For the "why" question, I think Tucker and others similar like Bannon are somewhat principled.  I'm not saying that in a good/bad way, but that they have a specific direction they want to see followed.  The error in their ways though is that they think they can influence Trump, so they curry favor by supporting him, but then think they are smart enough to get him to do their bidding.  Trump props them up when it works for him, and blows them off when it doesn't.  Ultimately they have no additional influence on Trump than your MTG and Laura Loomer, which I'm sure behind closed doors both would scoff at being compared to them.

  22. 11 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

    Yes, that is the one thing he gets right.  MAGA has claimed that they want that too.  We will see what they think if their leader gets us involved in a new war.  

    It really doesn't matter what MAGA has claimed, MAGA isn't based on principle, it's based on what dear leader says and does.  If he decides to join the fight with Israel, the only people on his side complaining about it will be cast aside until they find a way to reconcile with dear leader by doing something else horrible.

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