ewsieg

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.

I'm interested in your take with this. I felt like there were some possible inconsistencies in this forum pre/post Trump, but not so much pre/post Oct 7. Seems like this is a war hawk forum for the most part now.

I was about to push back on your "Maybe next time, don't vote for Hamas" comment '84, but you're subsequent comments give more context and unfortunately, I think you're correct. Yesterday I saw a comment about Israel having a blank check and I disagree with that, but I do agree that a "proportional" attack is going to be a lot different here than it might be elsewhere based on how Hamas wants to use Palestinians as pawns. I haven't heard follow up, but it was reported that Israel killed 4-5 hundred folks just to hit one major Hamas leader yesterday. Didn't that original hospital bombing which turned out to be friendly fire originally to be said hundreds of people and it turned out to be just a handful? Any number of innocent deaths is horrible, but also 1) I don't trust any numbers I hear coming from Hamas and 2) everything you stated is the reason why there will be higher casualties.

This is kind of fun watching others deal with pfife's gaslighting instead of me.

Graham turned and looked right at him to scold him as well. Per usual, just another issue we have to deal with because of Saban.

wow

Twitter is lit up with Senate drama as well. Some GOP senators are finally going after Tubberville publicly about his military hold ups.

None of it says that, nor was that the point I was trying to make. It's a nuanced world and I thought there were some interesting tidbits that went along with some of the things you were raising. An overall view and reaction towards someone that has been considered a champion of progressives, which correct, isn't saying it's anti-semite, but shows a considerable difference from the Biden core of democrats on the issue. I suspect you'll disagree, but it looks similar to Macomb county and how it changed recently. Pre-trump, your side felt it was full of good, honest, hard working union men and women. They surprisingly stopped voting blue for a billionaire because for reasons you can determine and the left, or at least folks like 1984 believes they are racist now. And yes, i'm sure there were some hidden racists that felt empowered to puff their chest a little bit, just like you're seeing with some anti-semite's that feel they have a little more power to express that now too.

I might have to surprise my wife with that show. We saw them at the Magic Bag probably 5-6 years ago, maybe longer. Soon after I saw them on a TV show or something and figured they were about to be big. My wife is still a huge fan. They were great live.

Chuck, I found this article interesting talking about the blowback Fetterman has had after a statement in which he said Israel has the right to remove Hamas. They cite some polls that were interesting as well which was interesting. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/sen-john-fetterman-faces-left-wing-backlash-israel-rcna122204