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berlinerbaer

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Everything posted by berlinerbaer

  1. They don't need to be replaced if they don't win the nomination, right? If so, why the fuck are we still dealing with Ted Cruz?
  2. Whatever. Oregon has recruited well since Belotti. Chip Kelly was considered a premier college football recruiter while in Eugene, and he cheated too. They'll win because they're Oregon. They won with Belotti. They won with Kelly. They even won with Helfrich. They only need Cristobal to not screw up management of the program down the stretch like Helfrich did.
  3. I work and have worked with several Iranians and they're all cool people. Sharp as a tack, too. Your average American Christian is more religious. And just like the Russians and nearly everyone else on this planet, they know much more about us than we know about them. This time around we won't have the benefit of a no fly zone in place for a decade. We won't have warring factions to exploit like in Afghanistan. Iran's 80 million inhabitants makes it the opposite of Libya's large swaths of empty desert. The Iranians have hunkered down for 30 years, planned for every contingency, and have had the resources for adventures in Syria and Yemen despite crippling sanctions. No, this is all bluster. There's no way we follow through on this and incur certain casualties, for which nobody in the US has the appetite.
  4. I'm glad I missed out on that earlier shit. Southern Sugar Land was bone dry until about an hour ago. Still plenty of time to get rekt.
  5. If tariffs stay at 10%, then maybe. If they go up to 25%, the US consumer will for sure share the pain.
  6. Muller testifies in congress this month, China talks fail and tariffs go up, sending stocks down, down, down... When was the last war we started purely as a means of distracting the population? Was it one of the Reagan central American skirmishes? I can't even put Iraq in that category.
  7. An armed population is antithetical to an authoritarian government. Period. A dictatorship with the available resources will eliminate all threats to its rule, eventually from present-day sympathizers. The gun nuts will hoot and holler as The Others are rounded up, but how long is that sustainable? Will the old angry white men simply be content to shoot at the dark faces they see on TV for all eternity?
  8. Hey, I also want Trump to be tough on China. That's mostly because economic pain is the only way Trump's approval rating floor will go down, but there is also a little acknowledgement on my part that it's probably working to some extent and the Chinese need to be dealt with.
  9. Outlawing gun ownership isn't a socialist policy. It's authoritarian. You don't need to own guns in a well-functioning democracy. The founding fathers put the 2nd amendment in the constitution as a safeguard to democracy, most likely one that has outlived its usefulness. There's a more important lesson here for you to learn. Under the right-wing illiberal "democracy" you have wet dreams about, you will not be allowed to own guns. They will come for the brown people's weapons long before yours, but they will disarm all of the masses one way or another. Eventually.
  10. Pretty much this. There were some great primary match-ups in 2018, like the Stacys in the GA governor's race and Fletcher vs. Moser in TX-7. The winners of these primaries are the stronger candidate in the general election. Thanks to Joaquin, we won't know if Hegar really is the best option to beat Cornyn. Some of his would-be supporters now might remain invisible to party GOTV efforts, which is an overlooked reason to get high turnout in primary elections.
  11. Warren is in the lead for me right now. I like Kamala and Bernie, too. But, man, ALL of them are head and shoulders above Trump. Voting for every single one in the general would be the easiest decision ever.
  12. It's funny. I actually give Dotard some leeway on foreign policy, just because far more qualified people have been screwing up so bad since 2003. Other than being dead set against military intervention, I don't have strong feelings on our current Venezuela policy. Then I see that John Bolton is in the administration and I know its all going to be a shit show. Like decades-long-insurgency-FARC-on-cocaine kind of shit show.
  13. Maybe I'll take a creeper pic for you the next time I see one at the pool here in Sugar Land.
  14. I chatted at length about a year ago with a company VP about doing business in China, and he said in no uncertain terms how wearily he viewed the prospect. He was well aware of the risks, as I would imagine most upper managers would be. Thankfully, it's not an attractive market for our division. Despite all that, we just can't resist sailing too close to the rocks. Our most technical salesperson just spent a month there. I recently learned we have started manufacturing our most popular product, and a major portion of our technology and competitive advantage, at our Chinese plant. We own the site, but espionage, if possible, has already occurred. The lure of fortune is just too strong.
  15. It's a good feeling when an elected official says things that not just make you think, but require one to pull out their calculator. That doesn't happen all that often anymore. If only fact checking a Republican could be as sophisticated.
  16. Just hold another referendum, ya goddamn wankers.
  17. I barely follow basketball and that would be a splashy hire even to me.
  18. Ridiculous. I think those aforementioned establishment Democrats would at least be capable of engaging in dialogue about climate change as opposed to the GOP, who refuse to acknowledge its existence and work to stymie all progress on legislation, etc. So, yes, there is a chasm separating the moderate wing of the Democratic party and the GOP. If the GOP vanished and the moderates became the new conservatives then this country would take a massive leap forward. Hook that shit up to my veins.
  19. So they should just suck it up for the next decade and vote D.
  20. Now is a terrible time to join the Republican Party. My guess is that if you went to a local party meeting you'd either be afraid to speak up or you'd get shouted down by the wingnuts. If you're lucky, they'd humor you and then blow you off. There's no convincing them. They'll only understand one thing: Losing. 2018 was a good start, but they need to lose more. Vote. Them. Out. Their brand of politics needs to be a political loser on a national level or they'll see no reason to change. As an aside, you seem to think the Dems are heading to the leftist fringe at warp speed and you couldn't be a voice of moderation. That might be true, but I think we are a decade away, and that's only if the Dems do a lot of winning between now and then and become fat and dumb themselves.
  21. So are some Texas state judicial seats by appointment instead of through election, or are these just temporary fills until the next (special) election? Either way, Hot Wheels was going to fill them with Republicans. I look at this like I do the McSally appointment to the Senate in AZ after her loss. Seems like some personal back scratching or a mad scramble to fill the seat with someone with a pulse. It's pathetic, really. The fact is that the November election results, big gains for the Dems, still stand.
  22. We'll take our wins, however diminutive, and like them, thank you.
  23. I agree with this. I look at "middle class" as meaning earning a living through "work" in the usual sense, that is translating manual labor or a more refined skill into the production of goods or services. This could be flipping burgers, toiling in an assembly line, grading exams, managing someone's financial portfolio, or performing open heart surgery. A member of the upper class OTOH is someone able to live purely off the economy, earning the majority of their income through stocks, interest, trust funds, equity, etc. They are a world away from anything resembling a traditional 40 hour work week. Actual income doesn't really matter.
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