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capnamerca

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by capnamerca

  1. 3 minutes ago, Iceman said:

    Entitlement to tax monies isn't a great selling point, platform wise.

    Just saying.  The mentality is repugnant to some, regardless of income level. especially when we have citizens with a net positive tax bill federally.

    It's been a pretty big selling point for the GOP, but it's because those entitlements go to corporations and donors, and not the American people.

     

    And if the mentality is repugnant to some, help us change the narrative by bringing back nuance and compromise.

  2. 4 minutes ago, Iceman said:

    No it isn't about suffering.  It's about owning what you do.  Don't be acting like the person thought that English Lit degree was gonna pay  itself off.   It was just fuck-fuck time in college, but now I want a bailout.

    People are TRYING, man! 

    Yes, people should make better decisions about what degrees they take. Let's emphasize the trades more in high school. Let's put some federal money towards educational programs, manned by the Department of Education.
    Yes, people should make better decisions about what loans they should take out. Let's ALSO hold Freddie and Fannie accountable for making some really terrible loans to people they're pretty sure would never be able to pay it back.

    Yes, you should pay back what you sign your name to. But bankruptcy exists because a long time ago, we founded this country on the ideals that all of us are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and one of the things we very specifically contemplated were "second chance" things, like bankruptcy. But student loans are exempt? Why?

    Even if we stopped the forgiveness programs right now, we're just dooming another generation of borrowers to the same fate if we don't DO something about it. 

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  3. 4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    Psssst.  It's because all of the abortion bans aren't about reducing abortion at all.

    oh, I know. I've known specifically in my own household since about 2012, when we heartbreakingly needed access to those types of services. Even then, the hoops we had to jump through clearly had nothing to do with the health and safety of my wife, or even her future ability to let us try again. And as if I needed reminding, I've watched like everyone else while the GOP systematically dismantled or refused to invest in anything even remotely related to education, womens health, or childcare programs, as if I needed any more proof.

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  4. 2 minutes ago, Iceman said:

    My concerns are:

    Public school funding/ waving the white flag on integration and community. Public schools are a direct investment in US.  Some folks are saying, "Fuck US."  I don't like it.

    Foreign Policy- My concern is control and not being a wrecking ball towards our allies.  Yes, some of them need to shit or get off the pot. Don't crush them.

    Prosecution of political enemies- I don't care who started it.  Be better.  There are far bigger fish to fry.

    Economy: I think some of Trumps focal points will help Texas, but I hardly trust him with the big picture.  He had some very strong indicators pre-covid; but he also has the "rest of his record."

    Like the OP, I am glad a statement was made by the electorate, and I pray that accountability or continuity reign in 2026, according to the results.

    I don't like funny-business with the Supremes, but I also don't want a left-leaning court.  I didn't like the repeal of Roe V. Wade.  Guess I'm pretty fucking indecisive in the big picture, but thought that move hurt society.

    Immigration- enforce the laws on the books.  Open borders are bullshit and people know it.  They thought it would dilute the electorate with blue.  Turns out that experiment might have backfired.  Just enforce the laws on the books.  I know there are good people here who have immigrated illegally.  Follow the process.

    I didn't vote for Trump, nor have I remotely celebrated this election.  It has been incredibly different and defined, however.  I want the right to act responsibly( they won't) and the left to correct their platform( they won't.)  So there we are.

    In the end, be the best citizen/neighbor/ parent/spouse you can be and hope the idiots in charge don't screw the pooch too badly( they likely will.)

     

     

    One party supports structure and decorum around the supreme coury, and one party holds confirmations only when it benefits their party, appoints clearly political appointees, and leverages the supreme court flow to directly enrich themselves. (BTW a left-leaning court is responsible for some pretty basic things historically, like desegregation and the ability of my wife to vote).

    Immigration - the border isn't open, but it is overwhelmed. One party put forth common sense legislation to try and do something about it, acknowledging that individual bill wasn't perfect but that we had to start somewhere, and worked to have in-congress bipartisan support for it. The other party killed that bill so as not to give the first party a "win" during an election season, which seems to be a rather unserious attempt to fix said border problem.

    What parts of the Left's platform need correcting? Can you please list off policy that's been voted into law (or ED), or policy that you think was rightly shot down which would otherwise have been enacted, that's broken?

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  5. 8 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

    2.) No.  I am not.  You don't know what I work for and what I give money to.  Again, you might conflate me with the boogieman in your mind but that's a you thing. 

    This isn't directed at you specifically, but your comment here is emblematic of the issue. Because in this country, we get one of two choices - Republican or Democrat - that shape the direction of this country. You can hold all the personal beliefs you want, you can donate to all the right organizations, you can volunteer your time at the shelter, and those are wonderful things which I sincerely keep happening. But enacting change comes from one of two places, and you sat it out. We saw who won, and thus ... you're part of the problem.

    Newt Gingrich is the other reason why this is such an intractable problem. This thread started on the premise of a truce, of a cogent conversation amongst people who's opinions differed. Baked into that 'truce' assumption is that by finding places where two different sides might agree, there exists a place where compromise can thus happen. Newt moved the republican party to a place where compromise is, quite literally, no longer possible. (Source) I forget who the poster was up-thread who said "democrats have said that about every GOP nominee in my lifetime," and then referenced Romney and both Bushes, all three of whom were nominees AFTER the Gingrich brain-worm had taken root. There did use to be a compromise concept to both parties. but it died in the late 90's on the GOP side.

    So when the progressives / liberals / democrats scream for compromise, for policies that put our most marginalized people first, for policies that help ALL Americans, the GOP DNA sees them as weakness, as losing. Compromise requires two parties acting in good faith, and the GOP aren't, and haven't in more than 30 years. It's completely useless to have any conversation about policy, because there's 0 chance of anything happening in the Senate or House, and the REASON that nothing will happen is entirely on the GOP. This is not to say that the democrats have policy figured out, or have any sort of monopoly on being right, but there's no path for the democrats to work on anything, because the other side won't do a goddamned thing in good faith.

    Which leaves us with one option and one option only - the presidential and congressional elections. If the democrats don't have control, then there is no structure in place any more to check the most basic of our human nature. Even if GOP senators or advisors wanted to consider doing something positive for the American common man, the minute they engage a democratic peer to work on something, they're ostracized by the party. Just look at the border bill for this insane reluctance to work on things that would benefit their own goddamned party, simply because of the deep-seated need to not give the other side a win.

    I have no energy left to think about compromise, because it doesn't do any good. The political people we just put into power have no interest in governing, only in winning, and the people that are going to suffer are all of us. They don't care about policy; they only care about winning. How anyone can vote for that is beyond me, and how anyone can claim for one second that "if the democrats only did X or Y, then we'd be more willing to lean in" is beyond me, because the facts of the matter are, you like winning too. More than you like helping your fellow man. Otherwise you would have voted for the Democratic nominee, and preserved some small piece of the American Experiment. 

    BTW, an abortion ban doesn't reduce abortion. It only reduces safe abortion, which is a different way of saying it only kills more women. Progressives have spent the better part of 20 years putting forth common-sense legislation and educational programs designed to reduce abortion. NOBODY wants to kill babies, we're just ALSO interested in not killing women, and realize that the solution requires nuance. If you want to work on not killing babies or women, we're happy to have your vote in the mid-term elections. If you don't care about women, then please, continue to sit out.

    Sigh. I tried. But I guess this was directed at gsoda directly, at least a little bit.

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  6. On 11/5/2024 at 12:59 PM, 956 Worldwide said:

    Absolutely love this account and been wasting time all day.  Police body cam audio set to MS Paint animation. 
     

     

    "Does this also surprisingly look like Athens, Georgia? No? Because that's where we are ..."

     

    Holy shit, this killed me.

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  7. 12 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

    I travel frequently and I still don’t see a country where some dirt poor minority has even close to the same chance to become a damn billionaire or whatever the fuck else they please to become.  

    double-post. Sorry.

  8. 4 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

    I travel frequently and I still don’t see a country where some dirt poor minority has even close to the same chance to become a damn billionaire or whatever the fuck else they please to become.  

    I fear you're falling into the trap of what America used to be. Sheer inertia will continue our standard of living for a while, but the gnashing of teeth from a lot on here is in reaction to a very clear changing of the guard. Hell, I'd argue that the rags-to-riches story of American Exceptionalism hasn't really been a legitmate outcome for 20 or 30 years now; just look at real wage growth over time, or the accumulation of wealth (and how America USED to deal with this level of disgusting aggregation), or any of a 1000 other signs that basically boil down to "rich get richer."

     

    And before you say "yeah but it's always been that way," it hasn't been that way to this level since the days of Rockefeller. And it took a Great Depression, and then the most liberal progressive president the entire world had ever seen to turn it around, which led to the actual creation of that American dream we all cling to. Unions, jobs programs, welfare programs, wider access to health care, pollution control programs, widespread education programs. 

     

    The REASON that the last 5-6 generations of Americans think that this is the best country in the world to come be a 'self-made man' is because of all the social programs put in place to make it possible, and they're almost all unilaterally under attack from the incoming government and it's mega-rich supporters. 

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  9. 1 minute ago, ChiTownDoc said:

    but it’s certainly not sending us careening towards the end of the republic.  

    It's not Trump. It's the people he's going to end up putting into positions of power that will careen us towards the end of the republic. Conservative judges by the hundreds if not thousands. Stated lunatics that want to abolish the NWS, FEMA, the Department of Education. Even scarier lunatics in his inner circle with publicly stated sympathies with white nationalists, etc. And christ, possibly two more SC judges.

    1 minute ago, Hagbard Celine said:

    stage 1 of the mass deportation will be violent criminals here illegally per one of his heads on cnn just now

    does anyone know how many there are?

    stage 2 they will figure out "in 2 weeks"

    Stage2 comes right after infrastructure week.

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  10. 1 minute ago, Balcones said:

    What do y'all call Gov. Abbott again?

    It's not about what I call him ... if you're drawing parallels,  I'm 100% CERTAIN that Colin Allred never called Abbot anything derogatory on the campaign trail, or encouraged his supporters to vote against the ADA.

  11. 1 minute ago, B00M said:

    Inflation bad. Life hard. Need new president 

    Maybe a better wage, or upwardly-mobile educational opportunities, perhaps expanded access to healthcare that won't bankrupt me, continued decreases in interest rates would all help me but ... inflation bad, need new president (let's just ignore that the fucking CAUSE of inflation is profit-taking and wealth-accumulation to the already-billionaires, and the tax plan for new president will just make that worse). 

     

    Fuck, I gotta stop.

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  12. 1 minute ago, troph said:

    The list can go on. It's just nuts.

    My personal favorite is the whole "repeal obamacare" thing. The main reason that plans on the public market ended up being so expensive is because of all the capitulations that Obama's team had to make to the R's to get the thing passed, most notably the lack of a public option "because socialism." By not being willing to share the risk amongst all US citizens, R's ensured that those who needed coverage the most would be doomed to continue to pay rates set by the insurers, who are fucking FOR PROFIT companies. 

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  13. This thread is a fucking beating.

     

    "Quinn might need to improve a little."

    Side 1 - fucking shit, you can't say that he only needs to improve a LITTLE. He's been TERRIBLE. Why are you always defending him and refusing to acknowledge what's right in front of your face?!?!?

    Side 2 - fucking shit, who else would you take over him? Why are you so fucking critical of every single thing? It's a single bad game, plus our OL have been total shit the entire year and NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THAT. This blindness about what total football looks like is why Texas fans like you are the worst.

     

    No one on the 'defend quinn a little' side is saying that everything is fine (well, maybe @Thatguy :) ), and frankly, I don't think anyone on the 'criticize quinn a little' side is saying that he should be benched right now (well, maybe a few outliers). I feel like I'm having to separate my two kids because they both claim that the other one left the dishes on the counter, and there's no possible way it was THEM that did it, and they're just yelling the same finger-pointing shit at the other one, BUT LOUDER.

    Shut the fuck up. We get it. QB1's play has been far, far below our standard since the injury. QB1s play gave us no chance to win the UGA game, and the trends over the last three games leave strong doubts about our ability to win out. QB1s play is directly influenced by the play of other units, especially the OL. For us to win a national championship, we've got to fix ALL of it. 
     

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  14. 22 minutes ago, Lhorn said:

    My early years were in Wisconsin.  They called it a bubbler, which in retrospect is a terrible name.  It doesn’t make bubbles.  

    @futureman this weird-ass name :). I should say, that's not what I called it, I'm just as baffled as Lhorn ...

  15. 12 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

    .dc00696741a4ae8a9b424ac6139f6ef9.jpg

    Let's take a quick poll, and see who grew up in the midwest vs. the south. What's that thing in the top-middle (cell A2) called? Just post your answer, don't comment on other people's answers ...

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