Joe Biden was an absolute freaking *disaster* for gay ppl

[NWUSHorny]

MAGA of all stripes and beliefs always believe they are the "real" victims of suppression, and their dear leader loudly confirms their victim status multiple times a day.

[nanana]

5 hours ago, NWUSHorny said:

MAGA of all stripes and beliefs always believe they are the "real" victims of suppression, and their dear leader loudly confirms their victim status multiple times a day.

Hi NWUSHorny, 

just checking to see whether you are going to affirm your position that MAGA people of all stripes “always” believe they are the real victims…? Very respectfully this comes across as hyperbole. Perhaps you were triggered to caricature a class of people? 

peace,

NaNaNa

[SomewhereonNeptune]

8 hours ago, viking8x6 said:

We moderators do our best not to take sides, except of course in those cases where the "side" in question is contrary to the rules we're supposed to be enforcing. That said, we are fallible humans who have our cranky days and are doing this on a volunteer basis. It isn't clear, in this particular instance, whose side exactly you think the moderator is taking.

If you honestly think a moderator has made a mistake, you should private message that moderator to discuss it. You should not make snarky and/or oblique comments in the topics themselves. You also shouldn't assume you know whether someone else has received a warning or penalty for their post, and proceed to jump on their bandwagon.

And @viking8x6 is really pretty fair about moderating this stuff, and we've spoken about times when -- let's call it the 'non-left-view' -- tends to get short shrift from many, and in the past it's made me reluctant to enter into the Politics Forum here because often my views are about as popular as members of Congress, STIs, root-canal and cockroaches, not necessarily in that order. 

But because the non-left view does get criticized, I attempt to substantiate any point I make with a valid source or reference. Otherwise, I'm sure I'd get called out on anything that doesn't necessarily comport to much else than what might sound like a rant.

So...to quote someone else, "thank fuck" that we have Viking around here, he's actually pretty fair. And I'll be the first to admit that forums don't do well with self-policing since I do a similar task on a more "SFW" website where volunteers also do the job. Thanks, Viking.

[SomewhereonNeptune]

8 hours ago, NWUSHorny said:

MAGA of all stripes and beliefs always believe they are the "real" victims of suppression, and their dear leader loudly confirms their victim status multiple times a day.

Interesting strategy to reverse play the victim card. I'll need to keep that one in mind. 🤣
What I will not do is to attempt to victimize myself other than what the media has already chosen to manipulate. So let's examine how the media manipulates. 

It was the major media in the US that chose to call Abrego Garcia "Maryland Man", completely disavowing his association with MS-13. And he was ruled as deportable. Multiple times. So now the opposite party has chosen to embrace an MS-13 associate as the hill they'll die on because he wasn't given 'due process'. And that's certainly questionable because he had already been given that by Immigration Judges, and as a non-citizen, that is the due process to which he is entitled. Adding to that, we have activist judiciary who is demanding that he be returned, to which SCOTUS has replied that the administration should "facilitate" his return. As a citizen of El Salvador, his return is up to that sovereign nation, which has made it clear that they do not wish to release someone they also consider as a terrorist.

20 hours ago, Erik62 said:

Nowhere did I single Trump out as a sole beneficiary. Also ALL types of media news are showing interviews that discuss SPECIFIC TRUMP ACTIONS that are making life difficult, closure of social welfare offices, firing of legitimately employed workers (in Australian broadcasts at least). I also labelled the Republican "COHORT" or cabal making huge profits & I think arms dealers fall into that category & the label of slave labourers in inverted commas which infers very poor (slave comparative) wages being paid. Nowhere did I bring into the discussion a period of time other than what is in THE CURRENT TIME period & the roll-out of Tariffs created a world-wide financial panic which provided a very suspicious backdrop for insider trading. The only reason that Trumps complete packackage of economic & judicial policies is not being rolled back are the result of pushback from personell within the relevant areas (judges, educators) affected. 

  Please excuse my oft random point reply but not easy to think, formulate, type, correct mistakes & balance standing up in a crowded early peak hour train. Doing this has taken my mind of the actual journey 😱🤣🤣🤣. 

They have trains in Australia? Who knew? 🤣🤣 Kidding aside, I can only go by your words as verbatim, so when you say "slave labourers", that can be a sensitive topic to the US based on its history, flawed as it is. But I'll try to address your points head-to-head.

Yes, there have been furloughs of government workers. There have also been voluntary buyouts and much discussion over probationary workers losing their jobs. There are also a ton of workers who are likely not needed given our over bloated bureaucracy, so supposing that the US needs to bring spending back in line, we can either raise taxes on everyone (unpopular option for all and has detrimental impacts to the economy) or we can determine where we spend money and if that's what we want to do. Is it possible that some services are impacted? Sure, because anything is possible.

Re: Australian Broadcasters. I can only imagine this to be comparable to the US media, but all we seem to see of your media in the US are funny bits from Karl Stefanovic and your Today show, or Sky News if we are streaming. Of course the US is not your government, so not sure of the depth of your coverage of our news versus your local events. As for the tariffs, it was always the stated case that the administration wanted to discuss fairer trade terms, and since there was no motivation for other countries to do so, tariffs were a way to bring people to the table. The EU has already stated their willingness to talk about equal tariffs; The UK has already signed a deal that opens their markets and reduces tariffs on their cars -- great if I want a good deal on a Jaguar or Land Rover. Others including China are following suit. And the losses from the stock market here have largely been clawed back. So we could continue to have shitty trade deals, markets closed to our goods, or induce negotiations. 

As to the points on judicial policies, this presents a test of the powers of the Executive Branch and what it can or cannot do. I personally think that any executive order should be followed by the actual legislation to codify that action into law. That our congress has failed to do so is appalling and lazy, and I lose all respect for Congress...or at least I like them less than hemorrhoids. 🤣

I mentioned that there was no proof of insider trading, but since our Congress seems to engage in those bits, we can either all get the benefit of Nancy Pelosi's stock picks, or our Department of Justice should prosecute all insider trading to the fullest extent. Everyone. Regardless of party. Make them felons and unable to run for office. 

Re: Arms dealers. I won't deny that's what we are. Or the military industrial complex that benefits from it including a lot of HUGE companies. Nonetheless, I'd rather that our economy benefits from that versus that of China. You know, since you wanted to mention "slave labour". 🤣 Feel free to ask what the Uyghurs are doing these days. 🙂 

As to media bias, I thought I'd share this chart from All Sides, which independently audits and rates media coverage, and pretty fairly I'll add.

Thanks though for a decent tete-a-tete. Much enjoyed. Peace!

[nanana]

1 hour ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

Yes, there have been furloughs of government workers.

I think the Clinton Administration still ranks higher in terms of the number of Feds furloughed. As a former Fed, I was sickened by the number of people who express sympathy for me rather than sympathy for the taxpayers that overpay for a 25th annual date with the government. 

 

1 hour ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

As for the tariffs, it was always the stated case that the administration wanted to discuss fairer trade terms, and since there was no motivation for other countries to do so, tariffs were a way to bring people to the table.

I can definitely appreciate that other countries find Trump’s style a bit oafish, but I’m surprised they haven’t realized that he’s talking a mean game until he sees that they’re coming to the table. 

 

1 hour ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

I lose all respect for Congress

Amen to that. If the President has determined that he can get results for less than Congress gave him, he’s behaving EXACTLY like a CEO of a Fortune 50 company. 

 

1 hour ago, SomewhereonNeptune said:

our Department of Justice should prosecute all insider trading to the fullest extent.

Huzzah! And love the chart!