The 2020 USA POTUS election politics, the civil war, and the world war (Part 2)

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The key point that is missed is you need to drop your preconceived notion that the vast majority of people are inherently “good”. There is a significant minority with no internal voice telling them they should be the least inconvenienced for the common good.
That said, that doesn’t mean you need to stop caring about these broken people. But you aren’t going to persuade them to change their actions based on an appeal to care about others, it’s never going to work.

Most of them are also complete cowards and intentionally need to project that they “don’t care” because they otherwise feel very small and weak. They are to be pitied. And we need more mental health resources provided to help them with their self esteem issues.

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Food for thought at the Tokyo Olympics:

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I actually agree with you on this.

But I’m not willing to go this far:

Considering that a large proportion of people that are refusing the be vaccinated are black, do you realize you are calling black people cowards that feel very small and weak?

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I don’t understand how people that think transgender women/girls should compete against females can see this story and still hold that position.

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It’s also said that the bully is usually the most insecure and cowardly one on the block…

“Not doing what I want you to” is not a synonym for not caring about others. I’ve stated multiple times why my actions have no effect on others, and your response continues to be “But but but you’re not doing what I want you to do!” It’s a pretty simple and straightforward question - when these people I supposedly dont care about are following the same preventative protocols to protect themselves whether I am (or anyone else is) vaccinated or not, then how is my decision a disregard for their wellbeing in any way whatsoever?

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That’s the whole issue with allowing gender to be a choice. Everything that is segregated by gender is done so based on anatomy and physiology. How someone feels isnt part of the equation, and forcing into the equation is inherently negating the entire reason there is separation in the first place.

Argue that there should not be “mens” and “womens” competitions, and that everyone should compete together. But dont argue that a man should be able to compete as a woman just because that’s how he/she/whatever feels, you were born with balls whether you like having them or not.

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There are different self identified reasons though for those populations than the anti- vaxxers. They don’t have such a large portion “refusing” it, as such. For example, many more in these groups are at inflexible jobs and don’t want to risk being fired if they’re out of work for 2 days (which is not likely but is possible). There is also less access to tech (computers/ internet service) which were a hindrance, particularly earlier on.

But yes, the end result is they also lag in vaccinations, and only partially due to systemic issues. Of course, some in this thread have been crowing all year that it’s wrong for the fed to specifically try to provide extra assistance and encouragement for the black/ minority areas to get vaccinated…
And similarly, many of them are in states with Qop controlled state governments trying to actively discourage them from being vaccinated.

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I truly do love how anything less than “EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE VACCINATED NO MATTER WHAT!” is considered to be discouraging it…

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This transgendered woman has competed before as a man & lost. Seems she’s grateful to NZ for allowing her another chance in the women’s category.

Very unfair!

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This is exactly what public policy is all about though. Laws, bills, rules, and regulations are all about telling other people to do stuff when they might not otherwise want to do it, or taking away their ability to make their own mind up. It’s not a tantrum, it’s a legitimate public policy debate. This idea that opposing viewpoints are tantrums isn’t healthy.

I’m a minimal regulation, low tax conservative, but I am not a libertarian. We are a year plus into a pandemic. I’m not in favor of compelling people to get a shot, but I’m most certainly personally judging their choice and looking down on it in the vast majority of cases. Their choice increases the odds, ever so slightly, of a mutation that can defeat the vaccine. Enough people opting out significantly increases the odds that it happens sooner and that it spreads faster.

Remind me to stay out of the politics thread in the future and stick to the finance threads lol…

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I might have been in error about Trump’s election loss last November. Stuff is coming to light, no thanks to Trump, which is concerning.

Double counting

I was focused on phony ballots being slipped in. Wrong focus. What they apparently did in Atlanta, instead, was simply to double count large numbers of ballots favorable to Biden. That’s a good cheat, but it never even occurred to me and did not come to light at all until a couple of days ago.

Chain of custody

Many of the essential documents are simply “missing”. Talk about malfeasance! And these belated revelations are not coming from Trump partisans.

All the bleating from Trump was not, in my view, helpful. He sort of went off like a shotgun when what he needed was a rifle. But I concede he didn’t know exactly how the cheat was accomplished, and besides bleating is his style.

In any event, Biden only “won” Georgia by twelve thousand votes. The size of this cheat is FAR larger than that. The other close states? Who knows, and even if Biden loses Georgia he still wins the election. Thing is, if more of this kind of cheating stuff emerges elsewhere, in other states, it certainly will cloud events. So at this point, instead of being certain Biden won as I was prior, I have to conclude:

Who really won the election last November? I dunno. It was very close. I just dunno.

Bad things happened in Atlanta last November

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Cheating in the last big election was
a travesty. Like so many Republicans, I think Trump won. Or better yet Biden lost!

Another thing, because of those results, the Georgia run off caused the democratic candidates to win.
A double whammy!

So I definitely hated the whole blowout. Let’s see if the Republicans can manage/maneuver fair results in the next elections.

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One of Trump’s many problems is that he has, or at least he had, FAR too high an opinion of Democrats. I attribute this to his being from New York City and having schmoozed with so many of them there for such a long time.

I’m confident five years ago Trump would never have agreed that Democrats are scum. Today? Maybe he has wised up after the beating they’ve given him over these intervening years. But I have to wonder. They were his buddies “back in the day”. Maybe he disagreed with them on politics, I dunno, but he never learned how slimey they all are. So he did not see coming the licking they were intent on giving him once he assumed office. And that is not something I can forgive. I have known for YEARS Democrats are (at best) socialist trash. I’m still not certain Trump realizes it.

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"Putin’s plot paid off in spades when Tucker Carlson played the clip of his comments to NBC on his show and expressed agreement. Carlson said, “Now, under normal circumstances, we would never play tape of a foreign adversary criticizing our government. But honestly, those are fair questions.”

Without a hint of irony, Carlson added, “Vladimir Putin knows authoritarian systems very well, and he sees clearly what is happening in this country.” The Fox News host seemed to assume that an authoritarian adversary was providing this advice without an ulterior motive—and eagerly shared it with his American audience.

His decision was cheered by pro-Kremlin propagandists in Moscow.

"During his nightly show, The Evening with Vladimir Soloviev , host Vladimir Soloviev proudly surmised, “Putin knew whom he was talking to and his message was heard. This is Fox News and its very popular program—one of its highest-rated programs. Republicans listened and couldn’t help but agree… Putin was heard and what he said hit the bullseye.”

Russian political scientist Sergey Mikheyev enthusiastically replied, “This is a good illustration of the thesis as to whether we should be influencing public opinion in America. Yes, of course we should—of course! The question is how to do it and which resources to use. Without a doubt, we should be using any existing divisions. Sometimes I hear, ‘What’s in it for us?’ and I will cynically tell you: whatever harms them benefits us. That is terrible but true.”

Putin is already polling higher than President Biden among Trump voters, according to the recent poll by Economist/YouGov, which also found that Republicans viewed Russia as less of a threat than Democrats do.

Now that Republican voters are increasingly influenced by conspiracy theories spread through the QAnon movement, pro-Kremlin propagandists seek to capitalize on that trend as well. During the broadcast of his show on May 31, host Soloviev asked, “What if the heroic city of Moscow hosted a forum ‘Free America’ by American QAnon supporters, and their living expenses would be funded by the Russian government, how fast would we hear accusations of interference with their [U.S.] internal affairs?” RT ’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan promptly replied, “We need to be doing that.”

Carlson’s commentary also flagged another line being pursued by Russian state propagandists. The Fox News host asked, “Who did shoot Ashli Babbitt and why don’t we know?” Rossiya-1 probed that question, quoting Republican Congressman Devin Nunes in a state TV news show on June 11."

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Right. But these days it’s a “I know better than you” postion, rather than a “we really dont know but it’s my job to make a deicsion anyways”.

Politicians are not saying “We think the benefit of the vaccine outweighs the risks, so we are going to make vaccination a requirement to do certain things until/unless we get more information”. They’re saying “The vaccine is proven safe and it’s just wrong to claim otherwise!”

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Trump asked whether COVID-infected Americans abroad could be sent to Guantánamo Bay,

And: "Throughout the pandemic, Trump repeatedly downplayed the importance of testing and falsely blamed the US’ high case count on tests.

“Testing is killing me!” Trump exclaimed to former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on March 18, according the book. “I’m going to lose the election because of testing! What idiot had the federal government do testing?”

Azar informed Trump that Kushner was, in fact, playing a leading role in the Trump administration’s partnerships with the private sector to increase the US’ testing capacity."

Not a hint of any real concern for Americans, only how it affected him.

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I’d consider that a pretty obvious idea, I’m rather surprised it, or a similar midway point, wasnt utilized for exactly that purpose. And its way, way better than, say, sending covid-infected Americans to stay at occupied nursing homes.

Quit trying to imply that he wanted to lock up all those travelers in the prisons.

The cycle threshold used to determine a positive covid test has in fact been controversial since day one.

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The only time in history the Postmaster General is actually and proposing to slow down mail. This guy’s tenure is one disaster after another. His solution to any problems is to make service worse, slower, and with even more problems.

It’s not that he’s inept, although he could be. He’s doing it deliberately. He’s deliberately trying to destroy the Postal Service.

Oh, and while making service worse, he wants to increase the price of stamps.

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Sounds more like incompetence in local positions.

When service has continuously improved without the requisite funding, it is unsustainable and will need to be right-sized at some point.

Congress can join the rabble-rousing, or they can provide consistent funding for the overperformance everyone appears to expect. But all they offer up are temporary bandaids.

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You are our prime complainer on this site. Incredulous, “hate everything”. Especially Trump or something concerning conservatives.

You certainly make my list of hateful characters!

Now on to one of your hateful issues of today, the US Postal Service. You mentioned rural service being disgraceful. I have picked up my mail at the Post Office for 20 years. I have never missed mail for any period of weeks or even days.
Standing in lines for hours, never happened to me, not even in the pandemic.

Those folks mentioned in your tirade should complain to their State about incompetence at their local station.

Some local Postal Stations are outstanding!