POLITICS SCHMALITICS

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

Act Blue does more harm than good, imo. The ads that show up on Twitter by Act Blue cause me to block the candidates in them.

They also don't know when to quit. It's customer relations 101 that people don't like to be constantly harrassed.

[chasfh]

FWIW, Act Blue has a 96% rating on Charity Navigator. OTOH, there is a warning box referring to the Paxton investigation and the NYT story.

Personally, I know practically nothing about them, and not at all outside the few times I’ve seen them mentioned here. 

[ewsieg]

3 hours ago, oblong said:

Some people just can’t handle women being in charge. 

What a weaksauce response.  Not sure if that is in reference to me or LeDuff, but regardless it's BS.

[ewsieg]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

It doesn't matter how many times the Trump WH bludgeons the CIA into re-releasing the same warmed over hash of speculation, if anyone knows anything, it's the Chinese - and they aren't saying.

Gehringer, while I give everyone here the benefit of the doubt, you are hold in higher regard than most.   You are one of the few that can occasionally smell some BS being thrown at you from your own side and acknowledge it.

You are absolutely right to say there is no definitive proof this was a lab leak.  You are absolutely right that science has shown that such a thing can happen naturally.  Honestly, I would not even put my life on the line to bet that it was definitely a lab leak..... but c'mon, you and I both know that if I bet my 401k on it, I'd probably be a whole lot better off.

And trust me, the US knows too.

[ewsieg]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

FWIW, Act Blue has a 96% rating on Charity Navigator. OTOH, there is a warning box referring to the Paxton investigation and the NYT story.

Personally, I know practically nothing about them, and not at all outside the few times I’ve seen them mentioned here. 

FWIW, I suspect Act Blue and WinRed both try and push folks towards reoccurring payments towards candidates (No different than any other business).  I will go further and say that WinRed, probably at the lack of morals from the party leading them, pushed it in a way that at least can be deemed unethical.  I wouldn't be surprised further if it's tougher to stop those payments if you gave to WinRed than if you gave to Act Blue either. 

While everyone says I 'both sides', even I'm not even pretending to give each the same benefit of the doubt.   

But that doesn't mean the other side may not be doing things wrong.   And by calling them out for it shouldn't be called 'both sides'ing'.   

[oblong]

5 hours ago, ewsieg said:

What a weaksauce response.  Not sure if that is in reference to me or LeDuff, but regardless it's BS.

I’ve never seen someone care so much about an attorney general or  Secretary of State. And this goes back before running for Governor. You seem to have a special thing for these 3.  They fart and you start a thread over it. 

[Motown Bombers]

I have donated to multiple candidates via ActBlue, including out of state which LeDuff would think I’m laundering money for them, and ActBlue asks if I would like to make it recurring. WinRed automatically selected recurring and made you have to opt out and it didn’t make it readily apparent you were setting up recurring donations. There’s a reason WinRed processed way more refunds than ActBlue. 

[romad1]

12 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

It doesn't matter how many times the Trump WH bludgeons the CIA into re-releasing the same warmed over hash of speculation, if anyone knows anything, it's the Chinese - and they aren't saying.

There are some really interesting videos on various political youtube feeds with the overarching topic of "what is the real population of China?"   The main point you can take away from the ones after you synthesize all the POVs of the makers of these videos (from Falun Gong to more rational types) the Chinese lie like a bed about their own population and anything that changes that population.  They take crazy steps to manufacture and control that information.   

So, if one were to expect them to come correct with real numbers about the cause or impact of Covid?  Nah, aint' happening. 

 

Edited Friday at 11:56 AM by romad1

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

There are some really interesting videos on various political youtube feeds with the overarching topic of "what is the real population of China?"   The main point you can take away from the ones after you synthesize all the POVs of the makers of these videos (from Falun Gong to more rational types) the Chinese lie like a bed about their own population and anything that changes that population.  They take crazy steps to manufacture and control that information.   

So, if one were to expect them to come correct with real numbers about the cause or impact of Covid?  Nah, aint' happening. 

 

when the Chinese cut off access to Western researchers to gather field samples, that pretty much guaranteed it would never be resolved beyond speculative theories.

And in the end, what does it actually matter whether it jumped to a Chinese researcher gathering samples a cave or from a one critter to another or because someone mishandled a sample? Do people think any of the same things couldn't happen here? The only take away that matters is that in a world as tightly packed and constantly criss-crossed as this one, you have to be prepared to respond when nature does the predictable/inevitable, and we have a admin gutting the CDC. The rest is all distraction.

[chasfh]

6 hours ago, ewsieg said:

But that doesn't mean the other side may not be doing things wrong.   And by calling them out for it shouldn't be called 'both sides'ing'.   

It’s fair if you want to call out the left, but if you want to be talked seriously around here, you should consider using sources less impeachable than Charlie LeDuff making circumstantial claims writing for whatever the **** Michigan Enjoyer is.

I’ll give you a good example of what a less impeachable source looks like:

Former state Democratic lawmaker Christopher Ziogas indicted Friday on federal corruption charges for allegedly pressuring state employees to cancel 2020 audit

These are Democrats who had actual charges levied against them within a Democratic state, and which were specified with details of actual charges by a news source which has a demonstrably high degree of factual reporting. 

It’s OK if you want to hammer Democrats for malfeasance and even to equivocate them with Trumpublicans. Just remember that your efforts will be better received with better sourcing. IOW, if you’re gonna get into the business, you gotta deliver the goods.

[oblong]

but he's not a girl

[romad1]

14 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

when the Chinese cut off access to Western researchers to gather field samples, that pretty much guaranteed it would never be resolved beyond speculative theories.

And in the end, what does it actually matter whether it jumped to a Chinese researcher gathering samples a cave or from a one critter to another or because someone mishandled a sample? Do people think any of the same things couldn't happen here? The only take away that matters is that in a world as tightly packed and constantly criss-crossed as this one, you have to be prepared to respond when nature does the predictable/inevitable, and we have a admin gutting the CDC. The rest is all distraction.

Well, was only providing the academically interesting nugget about the difficulty of assessing the real PRC population totals.  Some very sharp people doing some econometric analysis have seized on salt imports or some such which tell them its really under 1B not 1.4B which the PRC gov claims.   They have 400M extra or "more real than real" or "fake" national identity numbers just to pad that number out.  

[chasfh]

53 minutes ago, oblong said:

but he's not a girl

That's what Jocelyn gets for not just staying home and pumping out the babies, which, looking at her, I'd bet a lot of those red hats would have liked to have been the ones.

Edited Friday at 03:03 PM by chasfh

[ewsieg]

I occasionally disagree with my Governor, AG, and SoS and put it out there to discuss on a political forum which most people get to based on their love of Detroit sports, which the Governor, AG, and SoS represents.  I never saw anyone get mad at anyone else for posting about Snyder because he was a man.   

I voted for all of them, but even if I didn't, I think I should have a right to criticize issues I disagree with them on.  It's clear for everyone else here that them being anti-Trump is enough to shield them from criticism, except for Oblong who doesn't think they are strong enough to handle criticism and have to be protected for that reason.

Chasfh, you're point on the source is legit.  But a legitimate issue, not just in Michigan, but everywhere, is local news doesn't have the investigative journalists they had before.  The money is not there and therefore much less scrutiny is being put into investigating state and local officials.  Going forward you're mostly only going to have partisan folks investigating the party in power, regardless which state you're in. 

In this case though, it's not like it's a wild accusation that can't be easily proven or disproven.  He's not saying some women he refuses to name is involved, he's giving names and exact donation times and amounts.  He's even going to that women and she's flat out saying that the information he has must be wrong because she didn't give that much.   Personally I think it's worth taking that next step and verifying.   Instead, Act Blue and its supporters don't even want the question asked, so you guys are doing what you do:

Redirect to Trump.

Attack the source.

Attack the person that brings it up as misogynist (or racist, or ageist, etc).

 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, ewsieg said:

I occasionally disagree with my Governor, AG, and SoS and put it out there to discuss on a political forum which most people get to based on their love of Detroit sports, which the Governor, AG, and SoS represents.  I never saw anyone get mad at anyone else for posting about Snyder because he was a man.   

I voted for all of them, but even if I didn't, I think I should have a right to criticize issues I disagree with them on.  It's clear for everyone else here that them being anti-Trump is enough to shield them from criticism, except for Oblong who doesn't think they are strong enough to handle criticism and have to be protected for that reason.

Chasfh, you're point on the source is legit.  But a legitimate issue, not just in Michigan, but everywhere, is local news doesn't have the investigative journalists they had before.  The money is not there and therefore much less scrutiny is being put into investigating state and local officials.  Going forward you're mostly only going to have partisan folks investigating the party in power, regardless which state you're in. 

In this case though, it's not like it's a wild accusation that can't be easily proven or disproven.  He's not saying some women he refuses to name is involved, he's giving names and exact donation times and amounts.  He's even going to that women and she's flat out saying that the information he has must be wrong because she didn't give that much.   Personally I think it's worth taking that next step and verifying.   Instead, Act Blue and its supporters don't even want the question asked, so you guys are doing what you do:

Redirect to Trump.

Attack the source.

Attack the person that brings it up as misogynist (or racist, or ageist, etc).

 

The source did suck.

[chasfh]

53 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

 

The cheering for the end of democracy is what made this post for me.

[gehringer_2]

11 minutes ago, chasfh said:

The cheering for the end of democracy is what made this post for me.

The greater irony in this court's redistricting jurisprudence is the the completely nonsensical idea that if you do it for partisan reasons, it's OK. How is any deviation from the concept of equality of voting power/one man one vote ever acceptable? This court has wandered so far off into the weeds of partisan self justification that it's functioning as the primary facilitator of the demise of the document they claim to be so dedicated to reading as it supposedly was intended.

[Tigeraholic1]

 

Edited Friday at 11:06 PM by Tigeraholic1

[smr-nj]

Is that supposed to be some kind of “gotcha”?  😂

[pfife]

The left doesn't care about crine

[VegasTiger]

39 minutes ago, pfife said:

The left doesn't care about crine

teh left SHOTS!! oh ...wait...I mean we still can right?

[oblong]

Well going by Trumps track record he’s due for a pardon, no?

[ewsieg]

18 hours ago, oblong said:

I’ve never seen someone care so much about an attorney general or  Secretary of State. And this goes back before running for Governor. You seem to have a special thing for these 3.  They fart and you start a thread over it. 

I was thinking about this and I definitely don't like Nessel, but I really don't remember saying a ton about Benson.  As for Whitmer, I definitely was pissed at what she was involved in regarding Brian Woodward, but outside of that, I thought i've said good things about her too.

Obviously I can't go back to motownsports, but since we landed here in 2021 I haven't created one thread about any of these 3.  I didn't want to spend to much time, but I searched for posts I made that included any of their names.  I won't even mention Nessel, you're probably right about her.  I blame it on her constant screw ups, unethical behavior, and violating her oath of office, but I digress.

Benson - 5 posts in total.  2 of them had a complaint that I felt the wait times got worse under her early on before Covid. 1 was about her husband when he got himself in the news and the other 2 weren't complaints.

Whitmer - obviously more posts, let's just go back with the last 10 or so:

May '25 - Positive on Whitmer
Feb '25 - I invoked her and Biden's name when I was calling out some hypocrisy on Tigerholic.
Jul '24 - Named her and a few other democrats as likely VP candidates.
Jul '24 - Named her and Newsom as waiting for 2028 to run for POTUS.  I did make a dig at the Dem talking point of 'there will be no more elections after this one if Trump wins'
June '24 - Neutral post, it was about journalism and how they post info they get from admins.
Apr '24 - Positive on Whitmer
Oct '23 - The Tracy Kornak story, I went after Nessel and wanted the story pushed to force Whitmer to respond to it.  Ultimately no one cared that Nessel violated her oath of office and her own policies to protect her friend who was defrauding insurance.
Sep '23 - I was pissed, and still am, about how Whitmer and a bi-partisan bill she signed led to the death of Brian Woodward.  

I know I got on Whitmer towards the end of Covid.  I felt she wanted the new status quo, and wasn't following the science.   Also didn't understand the God status everyone put on her either, I guess it's because I wanted her barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.