ewsieg

Can't remember which podcast I was listening to last week but they were talking about Pelosi and her background. Family was a political family in Baltimore with mafia ties. As such, she was constantly looking for a way to help someone out so she could in turn get some help when she needed it. They pointed out an example with Ilhan Omar and Pelosi working to ensure she could wear her hijab. So when progressives were after Pelosi, Omar never pushed like others as Pelosi had her back. I've heard from several past, but recent GOP reps talk about McCarthy and they seem him as nothing but a power hungry rep that has no conviction and they have no respect for. If true, it'll make Pelosi's straddling the edge over the last two years look like a cake walk.

I think the hope is that behind closed doors, enough House republicans tell McCarthy that they won't vote with him to do this and he needs to just pretend he never said this and move on. I suspect that McCarthy is going to have 2 years of complete hell in trying to walk a tightrope from long standing GOP folks that are done with Trump and those of the MTG ilk that are positioning themselves for a role in a party still carried by Trump.

Did you not watch Tru Blood. There definitely were some cool vampires. This dude is speaking the truth!

Outside of the fact that the Taliban already had violated the agreement which would allow him other possibilities. Correct, I mean outside of the advice of his military that wanted him to stay and roughly 30-40% of Afghani's that did not want to be subject to Taliban rule (of which many helped fight against). Ahh, ok, you've talked yourself into a way where you realize you can't blame it all on Trump, but your head would explode at the thought that Biden had any role in it, so it's the fault of intelligence and the military which didn't want to leave because of such concerns. Got it.

It was a joke, figured you'd see through that. I should have known better as we actually agree on what our policies currently are in Ukraine but me just stating my reservations is enough for you to believe I'm truly despicable. Yes, because when weighing the cost of staying there and waiting for possibly decades more before we could possibly build them to that point to the benefit we'd get out of it, we chose to get out. And since facts are important to you, Biden had just as much say in the final call that was made to remove troops as Trump did. Was this Trump's deal, yes, absolutely. But it was a deal that US already felt the Taliban was breaking by supporting terrorists before Biden pulled the trigger. Looks like our intelligence happened to be right about it when we killed al-Zawihri. Biden had no obligation to stick to it, but he chose to.

You're right that holding Afghanistan was a much harder task, but it was supportable... at a cost. It almost sounds like you're saying that the benefit didn't outweigh the cost in Afghanistan, but that it does in Ukraine because the circumstances are different. Facts such as Ukraine had already established a democracy, shaky as it might be, a democracy nonetheless and that it had trained soldiers in it's army differentiate it immensely from Afghanistan. Note - the original response I wanted to give to this was to pull up a video of someone being stoned to death in Afghanistan with a snarky comment.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. You have changed my position. I would like to announce that I'm running for POTUS in 2024. My platform is simple, basic human rights need to be the priority. Self determination, collective security and the rule of law have been solid investments for civilization. As such, all focus should be there. Day 1, I'd end all entitlements. This would free up money to allow a 300% increase in defense spending, allowing us to be in more places at once, which would provide a solid investment for civilization. I have everyone's votes?

To follow up on what I said in my original post about agreeing with you on our stance in Ukraine now too, I hope our leaders will know when further support may be needed and move in that direction if it's deemed the best too. Arab Spring comes to mind. While we didn't arm it like we are doing with Ukraine, we had foreign policy that helped push countries to participate in it as it was for a just cause. I'd argue the direct benefits to the US would be far greater with a democratic middle east than whatever Russia could do to us, outside of mutual destruction. That backfired. It was absolutely a good cause, but it backfired. So just because something seems like the morally right thing to do, it doesn't mean that's how it's going to turn out. That said, many folks felt that if the US did take a bigger role in Arab Spring, we'd have a different turnout.

This is the problem. Merely pointing out that there is a cost to this war and pointing out some examples like the UN says could destabilize economies around the world, is offensive to you. (Note - take a look at what history at what happens to governments that can't feed their people). If you paid attention I have stated that I currently support what we are doing in Ukraine. Right now, the benefit outweighs the cost, in my mind. But I hope we have leaders that will continue to look for an offramp and be cognizant that the benefit may not always outweigh the cost. I don't remember you bitching when Biden pulled us out of Afghanistan. What's the difference? Oh, Ukrainians are white.... I got it.

He pointed out that it's a relatively small country that outside of the opportunity that presented itself of having a proxy war with Russia came this year, it had very little benefit to the US. Additionally he pointed out this has a bigger affect on the world. So... Ukraine, on the grand scheme of things is a small and corrupt country. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-corrupt-countries Corruption ranking is similar to Russia and Belarus https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=UA Ukraine GDP ~ 100 billion https://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-food-shortage-bad-to-worse-un-world-food-programme-102938562.html "Rising global food prices brought on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and commodity shortages triggered by climate emergencies are threatening to “destabilize” economies around the world, a United Nations (U.N.) official warned." https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12092 "Sanctions that isolate Russia are a shock to the global economy, which was still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The sanctions have likely contributed to disruptions in global supply chains, higher global commodity prices, and a slowdown in global economic growth." ******* And again, you can choose to ignore or stipulate what I feel I posted as facts. You can even choose to accept them and believe that despite the above concerns, the benefit of what we're doing in Ukraine is worth it. Please just don't pretend like this is a Win/win for every 'good guy' in the world and a 'lose/lose' for only the evil empire.

Note that I'm not going to just say you have some good points, but your thoughts on Russia above are my prevailing thoughts as well. What I don't like that I've seen on this forum since this started is that if you don't give Ukraine everything they want/need, you're a Russia asset. Btw, here are pics of a bunch of dead Ukrainians to 1) rile up the side that agrees with me and make them more steadfast and entrenched in their positions and 2) point out to anyone that opposes my thoughts, this is what we will have if we listen to you. Well, this is what we have doing it with unprecedented support to Ukraine right now. Biden has done a good job of helping support Ukraine without escalating anything directly with Russia. But we are playing with fire. You can correctly point out the Russia started the fire, but we're still playing with it. Maybe continuing this course is the best plan. Heck, maybe declaring Ukraine air space closed and marching troops to secure the western/central part of the country is a 'drop the gloves' moment that we just need to get done and hope for the best. What I don't think is good though is simply saying that for humanity we need to help them fight (while ignoring other atrocities elsewhere) and ignoring anything that doesn't paint this war in a good light.

So you do support a policy where the US ensures genocide within China stops that goes up all the way to military involvement?

My comment was towards the fact that you can't even have reservations about our role in Ukraine without being labeled a Russian asset. I don't agree with Screwball on his stance with Ukraine, but he does state some legitimate facts. And as far as posting dead bodies of Ukrainians as a response, where does it stop then? We've determined what China is doing with the Uyghurs is genocide. If GDP shouldn't be an issue, than why aren't we at least supplying Uyghurs with weapons. I'm confident they will fight if they have weapons. Yemen, a lot of atrocities going on there, often by Saudi's. Let's send Yemen 70 billion to defend themselves. I understand the pro's in supporting Ukraine as well. But let's not play this "Ukraine is the only one that should have any say" crap. War is hell. I'm not saying we have to tell Ukraine to concede their territory and hope Russia will agree to it, but at least allow some reservations be said about it. By propagandizing the war, it doesn't help your cause.

I didn't realize we had so many Russian assets on this forum. Meanwhile, friendly fire raised legitimate talk about article 5 from NATO, so please tell me again how WWIII talk is so far out of left field.

As the resident MAGA poster (not because i've ever voted for him, but because i've questioned dem policies), he's done. It's over. The only thing that was ever going to stop him was losing. The GOP was going to swallow their pride as long as they were winning. There was evidence already that while you had to have Trump in your corner to win a primary, it wasn't going to help in the general election. This past week proved that's absolutely the case. Why are there no successful third parties in US politics? Because once a party realizes they are on the losing end of an issue, they change course. Either the GOP cuts ties with Trump or they lose. For the MCS prediction above, if Kelly can get close to 50% of the vote, he wins by 20% over DeSantis, Trump comes in third.

So I heard about this "Slavery amendment" in Tennessee so I reached out to a buddy of mine who often claims he's the only democrat in Tennessee. Turns out he voted to keep slavery in place. He found out what he did a few hours after he voted as he didn't know much about the amendment but paraphrasing "Nothing gets on the ballot proposed by a democrat, so I have to assume they are all garbage". He read it wrong and was confused by it and voted no as in 'we don't want slavery', no was actually that they wouldn't amend the constitution to remove it. So now my buddy is still the only liberal I know in Tennessee, as well as the only person I know that has voted to keep slavery in place.

It's like he's the best hitter on the Tigers.

Inflation gets blamed on the party that has the presidency. As far as who is really to blame for it, you're right that it's a worldwide issue, but both parties were fine with quantitative easing, both parties were fine with stimulus, and 1 party was more aggressive on shutting down and staying down longer. All of these things, regardless of other benefits they may have provided, directly led to a bigger inflation issue. I personally am livid with the Dems over how late they got into the game of trying to deal with inflation and how they initially tried to dupe folks that it was just some redneck idiot that was just upset with paying such a small fraction more for some milk. I mean, even the "Inflation Reduction Act" will (minutely) lead to more inflation in the short term. In pre Trump times, inflation would have been my #1 issue to determine how I would have voted yesterday. Instead I had no choice to vote for Democracy for all first, and then restore rights for my wife and daughter before I could even think about voting for who is handling our economy better. It appears that quite a few folks had some similar thoughts and voted accordingly. I'm pleasantly surprised this morning, yet still not terribly comfortable with the direction we're heading.

Just got back from voting. I overheard an election worker stating it had finally slowed down enough for them to sneak in some time to eat snacks. It still was busier than any time I've voted at this precinct. High voter turnout is usually good for dems, I'm not sure they want high voter turnout in northern Macomb county though. The vast majority of the folks in line/voting were roughly 40 years old and younger. That could just be a fluke, but leans better for dems. I should have voted straight ticket dem. It hurt to vote for Nessel and I ended up going Dem the whole way down. Guess not the whole way as I didn't vote for school Trustee's, I never know about those races.

In the last week, several polls have been within the margin of error. Two months ago you couldn't find a poll that wasn't a double digit lead for Whitmer even counting the margin of error. I'm not sure how that is wishcasting.

That Slotkin one has had a national following which is why I included it. A few months ago I would have said the same about Whitmer. I don't know if it's by design, but Dixon has separated herself from the other GOP candidates.

My money would be on the big races in Michigan all going dem (all 4 girls). That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Whitmer and Slotkin lost. For Dixon to be this close with so much less funding is why I think nationally it will be a bad day for Dems.

I've been hearing how the young vote will sway an election for my entire adult life. It's possible RvW/Trumpism is enough to actually make it happen, but I guess I won't believe it until I see it. I suspect a very depressing day for Democrats tomorrow which is not what I would have suspected a few months ago.

Looks like I'm on the same page with everyone here on Prop 1. It's annoying though as based on the overall support of this bill (all the money is coming in for support), I'd think the financial portion of this bill could get passed by a republican legislature and a democratic governor without adding even more restrictions on term limits. That would require our government working as it should though...sigh.

Does the model take trends into account as well? If so, that could account for it. I'm surprised just how much the GOP has been trending up these last few weeks. I expected it to tighten a bit, but didn't think this much.