ewsieg

Doesn't China coin it as Socialist Capitalism or something like that? The stories I hear from smaller businesses over there is that it's probably like having a business in New Jersey when the mob was big. A guy I went to school with worked at his dad's business. They made paint/stain in Michigan and shipped it to China (I was surprised by that too) then had a distribution warehouse in China. They had to hire a daughter from one of the local officials and she was essentially a no-show employee. Keep her on the payroll and don't cause trouble, and they were good.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12742815/IDF-reach-gates-Gaza-hospital-hiding-Hamas-HQ-Israel-forces-enter-facility-uncover-terror-groups-secret-base.html I mean, if I was at a hospital, I wouldn't expect a guy running around with an RPG. I'm sure he's not Hamas though. </sarcastic>

It may be, but China is showing a willingness to talk. If someone is willing to talk to you, I think the default should always be to listen. Worst case, waste of time. Lots of best case possibilities though.

https://news.yahoo.com/theyre-clearing-homeless-people-san-202319014.html In playing the perfect host, San Fran is adapting to their slightly more right leaning guests and cleaning up the city a bit.

In part my comment was made in jest. That said, I absolutely can see the SEC pushing against Michigan right now to help increase the chances of two SEC teams. If come next year they can bring in some Michigan money into the SEC though.... i'm sure they would be all too willing to talk.

Michigan to the SEC by next week?

Our local community approved to continue an existing millage on non-homestead properties for our schools and didn't vote the guy that wanted to remove offensive (to him) books from our public library. Nice win/win for our community.

Love seeing that, but the posture of China in just the last few years makes me quite hesitant.

He did his part from letting it go further, but even if he tried to stop it, it would have just delayed the inevitable.

Trump 2.0 would absolutely be a larger embarrassment to this country than Trump 1.0. He definitely would bring in some deplorable folks for his cabinet. And while there is a part of me that would be fine if we simply decided to execute anyone that stepped inside the Capitol on 1/6, let's not pretend that our democracy was almost overthrown. The "deep state" does exist. It's not some boogie man that is trying to control your lives though, it's roughly 2 million fellow citizens from various race, religion, and creed doing their part to provide the services the government provides. I'm still confident it's stronger than any 1 person. All that said, i'm going to do my part to avoid 2.0.

In no way was my response meant to show any support for the GOP and the budget. That said, isn't it the congress that 'holds the purse strings'? Who controlled congress under Clinton? 😉 My only point is while most of us say a combination of tax hikes and controlled spending is needed to balance the budget, the left never promotes anything but tax hikes while the right traditionally only points to spending to control it. It also has only happened for a few times, all in a short set of continuous years in my 47 years on this earth, under both democrats and republicans in the WH and congress.

2 of the 3 examples don't even include spending cuts. I doubt they would offer any cuts for 24%. 35% and possibly they agree to 'cut' funding resulting in a smaller increase than they originally propose, for instance instead of 12% for HHS, they agree to cut that to a 10% increase.

I laughed at this response. I did see some prominent democrats push back on this as well, which is more important than a snarky but fun response like Miller's.

I'm glad your smart, but again, can you point to any evidence where the democrats would be willing to cut anything. I know recent history would indicate that vocally, they might be willing to cut defense spending, but 1) they never actually have and 2) they are war hawks now, they are the ones that are pushing for more spending there.

What makes you think the Democrats wouldn't block that as well?

I like the new kinks mix, but damn Iggy nails that. That's fantastic.

2023 and we're getting new music from The Beatles and The Stones, pretty crazy.

I mean personally in regards to these statues, I have a very Trumpian view. Simply put, I don't like people that were captured or surrender. I like winners.

High level quick view of the left on Israel, and understanding a potentially hypocritical thought process here as I've often argued here that just because rural America has complaints the left doesn't agree with, it doesn't make them racists, it's that it's not that there are a lot of anti-semites on the left per se, but it's simply that this is a conflict between two groups of people and one race is darker and poorer than the other, ipso facto they have to take their side.

I'm not feeling comfortable agreeing with Pfife so much in these last few posts from today and yesterday. Pfife, can you go give some half-assed defense to Nessel/Flint in the Politics Schmalitics thread so I can tell you why you're wrong.

That's a good point too, the loudest group doesn't mean its the biggest group.

I have not heard a lot out of Ukraine in terms of the war in the last month or two. I think by this time we can concede the counter-offense was not successful, at least in terms of reclaiming land. I saw an article yesterday saying the average age of the Ukrainian fighter is now 43. Not sure if that just means so many older man volunteered it skewed that number, but that sounds concerning. I know the pro-Zelensky argument is to just give more to them, but we've given them a lot and we still are giving more. Do we just allow this to be a forever war because it's a cost effective way to drain the Russian army as well as other Russian ally countries now helping supply it?

For clarification, after listening to this I looked it up and Greene never said Robert E Lee was a founding father, apparently another congressman spoke earlier about some act that protects statues on federal property of founding fathers, but none of that was related to Lee nor what Greene was responding too. That said, the rest of Pingree's response was spot on.

Well, I didn't want you to contemplate something else, I do think it's related. Similar to what Pfife and I were discussing yesterday in terms of understanding the reasoning behind something. I'm not saying progressives are all hidden anti-semites, but it's the progressives that are upset at Fetterman for saying Israel has the right to remove Hamas. You can decide what reasons they have in doing that, but I guarantee if there are any progressive anti-semite's that exists, they definitively feel emboldened to speak up now.

I can agree with that. In regards to your hypothetical, I think that's on target too. I know I've tried to understand a subject on this site only to feel like others are feel I'm condoning the GOP or Trump, but I'm sure I've done that to others as well. Trying to not bias a topic by bringing in a perceived bias is pretty much a constant thought in my head when I post here.