There’s this thing about bribing people that I think you’re well aware of….they don’t stay bought. Just look at Trump. He and his family personally took tens-hundreds of millions from China, talked them up for years, then turned on them when his trade talks failed.
For Biden to be under their control, he would have to be fed a constant stream of illicit money….like the Trumps all were. There is absolutely zero evidence Biden has taken a dime from the Chinese, unlike every single Trump that were all bribed publicly with millions in “gifts” from the Chinese government.

Trump didn’t nod, he outright told China they could expand in every direction, and they did under Trump….not under Biden.

Worse for the anti democracy, domestic terrorist crowd, that’s a good thing for Americans, Bobski.

Not one of those things is worse under Biden.
Inflation, happened under Trump.
Backed up ports, a red herring, Oakland port has no backup at all and is asking those stuck in LA to go there. The backup is planned. The appearance of shortages lead to rushes on goods….it’s marketing, not logistics.
Green energy is cheaper, cleaner, and a path to PERMANENT energy independence…something we absolutely did not have under Trump, we imported SO much oil, and spilled plenty.
Cost me an extra $.50- $.75 to fill my car, which happens EVERY SINGLE SUMMER Bob. Last year it didn’t because no one could go anywhere thanks to moronic Covid response that made us the absolute worst per capita for developed nations….Australian territories only closed for 8 days and had 0 deaths….did you know that Bob? They had leadership from adults, not denial from an infant.
Not higher food prices here, must be a you thing….or maybe a failed red state problem.
Empty shelves. Now I know it’s a red state thing….you’re on the east coast, so you can’t blame it on the fake shipping backup….what happened to NC that it’s fallen to shit? You know the second major factor in the shipping issues in LA are due to a much better economy and more people buying goods than last year, don’t you?
Also, do you even remember last year? Probably not. Those were empty shelves, Bob. Shortages on EVERYTHING from cars to meat to TP, even water. Literally empty shelves, not just in your fantasy world.

California has none of your problems, sounds like a red state leadership issue.

Know what else we've lost? Pandemic misinformation that's led to over 1/2 million dead Americans that need not have died and untold trillions in economic losses that need not have happened. That alone vastly outweighs every whine you've cried even if they were real and Biden's fault....which they aren't.



Let’s go Brendon….you really are proud of that cowardly whining aren’t you. You don’t even have the balls to say fuck you Biden, which we all know is what you’re saying. Sad little coward, throwing tantrums like a two year old. Nothing ever changes with you. 4 year olds have more honesty and spine than your entire failing political party combined. Cowards.


Republicans do not want Democrats to succeed, they want them expelled, or burned to death, or shot en masse. You’re such a bare faced liar and coward. You want enforced mask and vaccine mandates, free school lunches, and access to legal safe abortions? No? Then you don’t want everyone to succeed.

My portfolio has gone up more under Biden in 6 months than it lost under 4 years of Trump. He made the nation a constant victim, Biden rescued us from an abusive brain damaged parent….the kind you like. The kind I fear you likely are.

Democrat’s policies created the insanely great economic opportunities that made Walgreen think it was worth opening 22 extra stores in a small city. Now, high rent (because SF is an insanely popular place to live) and over saturation are obviously more costly than a minor increase in petty shoplifting.

Be clear, Walgreens isn’t closing all their SF locations…which they would if it was just about shoplifting. There are still 20 open locations in the city. 42 was just insane.

This reminds me of Texan politicians calling California an economically failed state, when Texas barely broke even in 2020, lost money in 2019, and California had a $36 billion surplus and supplies services.

@newtboy



You believe that Biden Economic policy is a winner?
You think inflation is a non issue?
You think his border control is under control?
You think Afghanistan withdraw was not fucked?

You think Biden ratings tanking on all measures are some right wing conspiracy?

What grade would you give Biden and his Congress?

Which POTUS started the war(s) in the first place? W. Bush. Which POTUS send billions upon billions of free military hardware to prop up a corrupt, coward, incompetent, puppet government? Trump.

Biden will own the absolutely hasty pull-out, though Biden ISN'T incorrect about unavoidable chaos. That's because the US -- AGAIN like most other American war adventures -- just pack up & left. In war, you either win, lose or negotiate an armistice to avoid a bloody and chaotic aftermath. You can't have an armistice with the Taliban because it wasn't - isn't - even a government entity. Biden was honest about the miscalculation about the speed of Afghanistan's fall to the Taliban at least. He said Intel couldn't imagine it'd be a matter of weeks but thought something like 90 days+? But that means crap because Intel said fall to the Taliban it WILL (i.e., an eventuality). So why the haste, where's the logistical & humanitarian planning? There is no justification for that strategic lapse. The major international criticism (100% valid IMO) is how Biden/America abandonned its own and allies' citizens & Afghan aides in a war torn country with little planning & time to get them out of the country BEFORE the military leave. And leaving all those military hardware intact to the Taliban? What the hell? I mean, what are the generals doing? Is American reverence of its President so total that you can't pushback and buy some time to plan for a better outcome? Or are they really THAT incompetent? What this fiasco shows is that Biden/Pentagon cares nothing BUT the military personel. That is f---ing it, no more, no less.

What we're witnessing in Afghanistan is arguably a collective American sin, not just Biden's. Most Americans want out, like it should've happened yesteryear. The US have been propping up its GDP by using endless wars to feed the mouths of the military industrial complex to sell hardware abroad. It's an addiction whether the Dem/GOP likes it or not. This is just another sad but typical American war history repeating itself again. It's America's military modus operandi. Want to apportion blame? Don't just blame it on Biden, there's plenty to go around: from the WH to the Senate, Pentagon and down to the "Almighty American Military Prowess' Sure Win" mentality in its people are all to blame.

Oh, rest assured that Republicans couldn't do better. Why? Because it's built into the American military DNA: arrogance & ignorance. That breeds blindness, making Intel useless - or worse - counterproductive because of the inherent lack of situational/cultural awareness. It's not really a political mistake, rather a huge military blunder.

It's a f---ing war crime to start a war and not knowing how to end it already. It's made worse that America collectively *think* it can "nation build" a vastly different (culturally, economically, socially, judicially... etc.) , and far away country by basically propping up a corrupt, dependant, puppet government and then leave, knowing (or EVEN worse, NOT knowing) the eventual outcomes. What a pathetic, cruel and deadly joke.

Such sceneic route, now but a vastness of devastation.

When we can just tone the down the incessant over consumption for the sake of driving up "economic growth" and not do a thing for the environment and concentrate of quality-of-life?

D’oh! Numbers are out….from Trump’s first to last month in office, GDP raised 1.6% per year, the worst since Hover in the Great Depression. So much for being an economic genius, he’s literally the worst on the economy in living history.

How many more ways will he be determined to have been literally the worst? Already judged the worst by lack of leadership, abundance of division, worst economically, worst at public health, worst at trade deals, worst on the environment, worst at telling the truth, worst at civility, worst/most criminal convictions of any administration, …..what’s left?

one of the very first stories ever read about a white community destroying a black community boiled down to simple envy.

two communities, one black, one white, lived adjacent to each other. the blacks were obstinately outcast from the larger white town and in turn, formed their own community.

in short, an economic downturn bankrupted many of the whites; the blacks were rock solid and continued to thrive.

the combination of blacks buying up failed white farmland; whites having to patronize black establishments for goods, and sheer unearned pride led the whites to "Tulsa" the black community.

the black folk did not reincorporate and dispersed. while the whites and their town barely hung on for a while, before it again failed. it only lives on as a name on old maps.

odd thing, even on modern maps there appears to be an area of expansive farmland where those towns once were. in comparison to the peppering of towns all along the state's roadways, that area is abnormally sparse. almost as if the map had a scar.

Problem is, most foreign government's action (military, economic wars & sanctions) primarily affect the PEOPLE negatively, not the targetted government. All government - oppressive or otherwise - entities dig-in and extert even more control in the face of challenges to its power. Consequences (to the people) be damned. It's been that way for millenia.

Its not where you start in life its where you end up.

White privilege is a false statement. Its really middle class privilege. Its about education not skin color. There are plenty of poor whites as much as there are poor blacks.


Those in the back mostly without fathers.
All knowing Newt, What is the fix?

Economic hardship of those kids would be lesson if both parents were present.


Finally JOBS or lack of them are mostly due to government policies ( Fair trade / Free Trade) have decimated job opportunities for All Americans, especially low wage and entry jobs.


Make policies that bring jobs back to America. Passing bills that take tax dollars and make roads or such only create short term jobs.

Trump was right Lower business tax rates to compete on world stage stimulated economy and America started to flourish.

Sadly Biden/ Democrats want to move tax rate up which will slow down growth, if passed.


Learn???
My dad started working at 14, His dad never got passed 8th grade.
My dad went bankrupt, had a chronically ill wife ( died in early 40s due to it) and 4 kids.

He never left. He worked his ass off.

Also he broke his back in 3 places and crushed his right hand. He left the hospital to sign a house mortgage, knowing he might never work again.
With a healing back and crippled hand he drove 50 miles each way in a stick shift car for 3 years like this just to keep a roof over our heads.

I paid my own way through college, Same for my sister.

My dad says If you want it bad enough you will find a way.

So don't tell be about white privilege bull shit.

What about Black lawyers, Drs, and ball players?
They make way more coin than most white people. Do they have white privilege?

The person making minimum wage likes it enough to stay, else he will find a better paying job.


Should fines, penalties be smaller for poor people , yes.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” -Joseph Goebbels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels

Way I see it, while Trump is a major contributor to USA Covid-19 deaths, yes, but the MAIN reason is the overly libertarian, short-term economics driven policy and false "human right/freedom" anti-masking rhetoric that caused the rise of the pandemic to the levels countries like the USA & Brazil is at. There are many levels of government, people's behavior and economic factors to blame, not just Trump.

Just calling it the "China virus" doesn't solve the pandemic, nor absolve Trump of blame, he hardly ever tried to get things under control.

All Trump did was letting 0%/low tax paying Wall street mega-corporations profiting handsomely during the pandemic, while the mom & pop main street stores & its staff going under. You know, because MAGA!

I don't disagree that Trump could have handled many aspects of the pandemic better, but I think your numbers are a bit off.

One, because with the lack of a vaccine, experts are unsure of how many of the deaths can be laid specifically at Trump's feet. In other words, they are unable to put a solid number to how many would have died had he done anything different. It certainly would not be 80-90%, that is a nearly unproveable claim in the face of no vaccine being available. The closest estimate is from the Lancet Commision, which suggests that 40% could be Trump's fault, along with four decades of "long-standing flaws in US economic, health, and social policy" that compounded inefficiencies in the country's public-health systems before the pandemic. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32545-9/fulltext

If you look at statistics, Biden's administration was running at similar death numbers than Trump's for a couple of months after he took office. They only began to decline rapidly since the vaccine became more available. Vaccine availability is more of a factor of how fast the companies were able to make the vaccine, versus anything Biden could have done. His contribution, if you will, is primarily not stockpiling a reserve and sending it out as fast as possible. The current death rate is running about the same as from May 2020 to November 2020. The winter surge was about as bad as everyone expected.

Here is a link that shows the deaths on a timeline. Select "deaths' instead of "cases". https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/01/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/

"What on earth are you talking about?"
-newt

The rules for property and income when one or both parties decide they no longer want to be in the relationship.




"not having a marriage means you almost certainly will pay for them for 18+ years but won't have many rights to be in their lives"
-newt

Incorrect. If you are on birth certificate, you have the same rights and obligations.
The only pitfalls are that :
- Child support is calculated from the income of the parent with less custody (rather than from the true cost of raising a child).
- Women almost always get custody if the choice is between two parents (like when they live far apart and child can only be at one or the other).



"and may lose your rights to any assets if she grabs first"
-newt

Negative. Co-parenting does not conflate property.

Shared assets when not married are divided either by percentage of purchase price contribution, or by percentage stated in a contract.




"My brother paid well over a hundred thousand dollars for his divorce in Texas"
-newt

"My brother won."
-newt

Won by your own definition. Hence I congratulate.




"You assume women take off time to raise the kids"
-newt

No assumptions. Although afaik they still do it more often.




"You start from a false position that men work both harder and better, but you have no data to back that up. "
-newt

Top result from a zero effort google of "men working hours vs women working hours"

https://towardsdatascience.com/is-the-difference-in-work-hours-the-real-reason-for-the-gender-wage-gap-interactive-infographic-6051dff3a041




"Um...so since you admit many women outearn men and the trend reinforces that"
-newt

I admit that women [as a group] under 35 out earn men under 35 because of preferential admittance (such as to higher education) and preferential hiring (such as to managerial positions).

I did not say that women earn more in the same position for the same hours worked. Young men are simply getting shut out of opportunities, so their incomes are lower. As by design.

It does however highlight how affirmative action is being poorly controlled.
The target statistic is based on overall population at all ages.
The adjustment is skewed to younger ages (school admission is typically for younger people).
So the system is trying to balance out incomes of older men by trimming up incomes of younger women, with no accounting for the effects on younger men or consequences of older men retiring.
The situation is doomed to overshoot with time.

A natural result is the popularity of people like Jordan Peterson, with messages like : "Young men, nobody will help you, stop waiting for someone to help you, stop lamenting your situation, you gotta pull yourself up by your boot straps. Start by cleaning your room, then go make something of yourself".






"Bullshit. You said you would immediately dismiss any woman who has...
"Long dating history? Too much risk[etc]" -scheherazade "
-newt

Straw man argument.

You know I stated that those marriageability criteria exist specifically due to risk of consequences of divorce.

I never stated that I have personal issues with those attributes.
I have dated women on that list. I didn't /marry/ them.

My only criteria for a relationship that I am happy being in is :
- We are mutually attracted
- We like each other
- We are nice to each other
I don't care what your religion is, your politics, your family status, whatever. It's all just noise to me.





" And again, prenuptial. Do you not know what they are?"
-newt

Prenups can be negated by these simple words :

"I did not understand what I was signing"
or
"My lawyer was not present".

Poof. Prenup thrown out.




"their husbands are more likely to break their vows first"
-newt

A woman to cheat needs a willing man (easy)
A man to cheat needs a willing woman (hard)

Times have changed. Online dating made chatting someone up in person and make an impression uncommon, and even considered creepy/unusual. Now people are picked on their online profile based on looks/height/social-media-game.

Dating apps and sites publish their statistics. Nowadays, around 20% of men match with around 80% of women.
Most men aren't having sex. Most men can't find a match to cheat with if they wanted to.

The tall cute photogenic guys are cleaning up.
The 20% of men that match the bulk of women are going through women like a mill. They will smash whatever bored housewife crosses their path.

A 2 second google result :
https://usustatesman.com/economics-of-dating-2-the-brutal-reality-of-dating-apps/




"Women don't like men that believe wholeheartedly that all women are just lessers, leeches"
-newt

Agreed.

Fortunately, I never say that about women.






" you can't grasp that a codified, delineated, agreed to partnership is almost always better, more fulfilling, and has many benefits cohabitation lacks"
-newt

False equivalence.

Cohabitation and Partnership are mutually independent.
Meaning both can exist at the same time.


-scheherazade

Measuring the efficiency of "investment" into social programs is.. debatable.

This was the best 20 minutes on national debt I can remember to have seen or heard or read.

National debt is one of the hardest (yet closest to the skin) things to explain to people who have a lay attitude to economics. Right up there with Annual percentage rate and secondary effects of raising minimum wage.

As far as I know, the Icelandic people are the only ones in history to successfully redirect a lava flow (excluding Tommy Lee Jones). They got this.

[ In January 1973, Eldfell volcano on the island of Heimaey erupted an ‘a‘ā lava flow. Over the next 5 months, billions of gallons of seawater were pumped through an elaborate network of pipes laid out across the lava to cool the flow and slow its advance toward Heimaey's only harbor, the lifeline of the island and a critical economic resource for the entire country. The fragmental nature of the lava flow's surface allowed the seawater to penetrate deep into the flow and cool the lava near its core, and the advance of the flow was slowed as the flow front thickened dramatically.]