I thought Trump was the world's best deal maker, didn't he have a book ghost written for him (because he can't read and write well past the 4th grade level) called the "Art of the Deal"? During the campaign he said again and again how "Only I can... [insert whatever]". None of those things are done that only he could do. It's like he lied... "lies, all lies!" to quote Frau.

They blame Democrats for not joining in, but they weren't even invited to participate in Trumpcare on the Senate side at all... hell, most of the Republicans themselves weren't allowed to participate in the creation. Compare that to the ACA, which had over a year of public debate and had plenty of Republican input and amendments. The Republicans have the number of people to pass anything they could want to pass, but the world's best deal maker, can't make a deal with his own party?

I think this shows more and more how the Republican party needs to split. The divides in the party itself are becoming too great. The problem of course is then they loose control as you split the vote, Fox News and the right wing media would follow the more right wing split, while the Reagan era style Republicans would be sidelined, though maintain a big voting block among less brain washed Republicans.

The party can't even get a simple repeal passed, which they've passed before, of course it was just symbolic then, actually passing a repeal seems harder. They campaigned for years on how they had a better plan, of course they didn't show it, which should have been the first warning they didn't have one, and now they spend all this time trying to come up with something better and still can't pull it off, despite having a clear majority. Of course another warning sign should have been the fact that last break, only 2 of them had enough guts to actually hold town halls, the rest avoided their constitutions...

Unrelated side note: I still say all the Senators and Representatives should stay home, in their home districts. Technology is such that they don't need to all be in Washington at all. Of course I'd also cut their pay then, say to what an entry level soldier (sans hazard pay) would make since it is a service position, not a career, term limit them (12 years House, 12 or 16 years Senate, 8 years President, or 20 years combined total max). And then you make the number of Representatives actually be based on population, we've had 435 Reps since 1911, and the population has grown a lot since then... say one Representative for every 500,000 people, which would give us 646 Representatives, which stay in their home districts. But of course that would rob them of their money, their political careers, and make them more liable to the people they represent, so congress would never make those changes.

I lived in Turkey for four years, and after a while I noticed that Turks didn't respond well to my smiling. They didn't understand it as a friendly signal, and it actually caused friction. I never asked about it, but I somehow caught on that they thought I was stupid. I thought about it, and it made perfect sense to me that it was stupid to smile at things that shouldn't make you happy.

So I stopped smiling in stores and restaurants, with coworkers, and even with Turkish friends. My interactions with people improved noticeably.

After four years, I moved back to Canada, where I continued not smiling for no reason. I've never been able to get back into the habit. I just feel stupid and unnatural smiling for no reason. People smile at me just because they see me, and they smile politely. I can't smile back. I just raise my eyebrows.

People now tell me constantly that I'm too sad, that I should smile more that I'm not happy. Now, there's some truth to that -- I do suffer from depression -- but that predates living in Turkey and it's only since then that anyone's accused me of being sad, or even noticed that I don't smile as much as I should. I've had to train my friends out of referring to me as grumpy.

My job is teaching English as a Second Language to students from all over the world. My Western students -- particularly the Latinos -- tell me daily (literally) that I don't smile enough. My East Asian and Eastern European students have never said a word in that direction. I just realized the divide now after watching this video.

Here's episode 1: How to Unite Our Divided Country

This line is incorrect Vavg = (V1+V2)/2. That only applies if you run at V1 and V2 FOR THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME.

Speed is Distance divided by Time, so the formula for calculating average speed is Dtotal / Ttotal.

The problem is that that only works if your second lap can be longer than the first lap.

If they are the same distance, the maths are undefined.

V1 = D1/T1
V2 = D2/T2

Vavg = (D1+D2)/(T1+T2)
if (D1 = D2) then
Vavg = 2D1/(T1+T2)

if Vavg = 2V1 then
2D1/T1 = 2D1/(T1+T2)
then T2 = 0

therefore V2 = D1/0 .... cannot divide by 0 (and no, it's not infinity )

That's not how this works. Liberals and conservatives are supposed to be polar opposites. A liberal should never agree with a conservative on anything. The more divided and intolerant we are of differing opinions, the better this country will be. Freedom of speech means you have the freedom to share my political views or else you're just a Nazi scumbag.

@Jinx
my main point is the the fringe of both ends of the political spectrum dominate the discussion,and BOTH are fucking horrible,ill-thought,narrow-minded and petulant.

they are part of the disease.

not every person who identifies as left is a snowflake,nor is everyone who identifies as right a bed wetter.

i wrote extensively on why trump won,and would happy to share if you would like me to,but to answer your question:no.snowflakes are not to blame (and i am struggling how you conflated that to be honest).

i have been:pepper sprayed,maced and beaten by three cops.
i have been thrown in solitary for days without food or water,and no working toilet.
i have been punched in the face by a supposedly devout christian,and i have been publicly harrassed for mistaking a young woman for a man at a gay bar.

is there anything else you would like to know to assuage the MASSIVE presumptions you made in your comment?

look dude,if you can't see that both the ultra left and ultra right are fucking bonkers and have lost their way.they co not even come close to representing the majority,and by their behavior..i do not think they really care.

so why should we?
the people who recognize that shit has gone sideways.that the politicians are purchased corporate whores,and this binary politics is just a device to keep us divided.

i am an anarchist,but i am not stupid,and refuse to be coddled or manipulated into buying into shitty philosophies and even worse politics.

the ultra left are fucking cry-babies,and the ultra right neo-fascists are bed wetters.

and both have lost their way.

Serious contender for comment of the month over at NC. Excerpt:

Flyover people and the uncomfortable urban poor fight the never-ending wars. We provide commodities like food and coal and oil and metals. We provide cheap labor. Comfortable people have decided that most of us aren’t really needed. Immigration, free trade, and automation have made us redundant but we’re not going away. At least we’re not going away fast. Flyover people and the uncomfortable urban poor have no real place in establishment Democratic or Republican thinking. We are the establishment’s problem and the establishment is our problem.

I think part of the problem here is semantics Definitions.

What does "hacking our election" mean?

It is widely acknowledged that there is no evidence that the Russians accessed our voting machines to change votes. If your definition of "hacking" is interference with computers and their outputs, then yes, there is no hacking by Russians.

But if you are a person who isn't careful with original meanings of words, and use words in a new way to speak in short cuts -- then you will use the word "hack" to mean mess with. Change. A life "hack" for example. And there is plenty of proof that there was a concerted effort on the part of the Russians to plant false stories, fake news, to try and influence the election. That Americans were doing it too, for either political purposes or just to make some sweet easy advertising money, doesn't change the fact that there was this specific effort.

As for "confirmation bias" -- yeah. You got some, enoch. Every time anyone sets up an argument in such black and white terms, that is evidence of confirmation bias.

The world is gray, and messy, and not black and white. To try to make it so is deepening a manufactured divide.

And both sides do it. And have done it for a long time.

Because sound bites work. Slogans work.

Fight back against black and white thinking.

That site is conservative run and compiled, and even so, just do the math, divide by population. Start with Alaska, firmly red.
But, much better, look at REAL numbers instead of that rabid Trump supporter's totally unverified numbers, these with the math already done for you at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state

California spends $8,967 per person while taxing $7690 (honestly worse than I thought),
New York spends $9,940 and taxes $10,279.27,

Alabama spends $11,743 taxes $4,330,
Alaska spends $14,375 taxes $6,697 (I think only DC is worse),
Arizona spends $10,157 taxes $5,318,
Arkansas spends $9,635 taxes $8,578
(and because you mentioned them, Texas which spends $8,865 and taxes $8,421.59, not so bad)

....and that's just comparing the A's to what you would expect to be the most social service friendly firmly democrat states. Clearly, looked at per capita (the only way it makes sense) red states take far more than they give on average, then complain that they're supporting the inner city with their farm taxes, it's just not correct.

EDIT: and as mentioned above, I also know Texas, and the country folk are just as big welfare queens as the city folk, they just convince themselves that a corn subsidy isn't welfare, putting some pet goats on the property so you don't pay taxes isn't welfare, getting free water for their crops paid for by the government isn't welfare....it's just bullshit. If you take what you don't need, or don't pay your fair share, you're a taker, and that describes a HUGE portion of the right....largely your country folks.

What I think he means with "stop talking about it" to end racism means stop talking about (and focusing on) race, not stop talking about racism....all of us, not just the victims of racism. If we ALL ignored race, clearly racism would evaporate....but racists don't do that, instead they focus on it. What the video implied IMO with the smiling Trump is that we should just stop talking about racism but continue to apply it, problem solved. Trump himself often divides and labels people based on race, unapologetically and gleefully, he certainly does not approve of the idea that he should 'stop talking about race and dividing people based on race', which is what I'm sure Morgan was saying.

I was mostly with him until he said anyone can pull themselves up by their boot straps. That's bullshit. He had immense talent (he won a state wide drama competition at 12), drive, opportunities, supportive family, education, and just as important, luck. Assuming that anyone without those abilities and support can do the same is ridiculous. Circumstance and natural ability mean most people don't have a chance to take advantage of opportunity that might present itself if they're lucky enough to have one appear. There's something wrong with him to think that anyone can do what he did, clearly almost no one can as very few have.

Yes, Mr Freeman, the bus runs every day....but you have to have the fare and be willing to abandon your family, job, home, and community for a lottery ticket elsewhere. For some, there's nothing to lose looking for greener pastures, but most who get on that bus are not successful, and many take their families down with them. I'm not suggesting people shouldn't look for better options and take them, but it's not as easy or simple as just getting on the bus.

Agreed (Stormsinger), and agreed (ChaosEngine) - it is a stupid statement and that was his point. A sweeping statement that "Catholics don't believe in Hell..." is stupid and incorrect. Likewise, saying "Police are biased against people of color" is also a stupid statement - many are people of color - doesn't really address the problem or lead to a cogent discussion of how to reduce the threat to suspects or the threat to the police officers who are also killed in the line of duty.

His point is absolutely correct: there is too much empty rhetoric intended to divide public opinion and not enough real interest interest in addressing the underlying cause of the problem.

I think it is a case of him realizing that his work, up to the time when he changed tune, sort of led to the divide that allowed Donald Trump to seize power. I get this deep sense of "Oh fuck, I helped cause this!" coming from him.

I worry now that the liberal talking heads will make the same mistake now, because when you only spew doom and gloom, it opens the door for bad people.

I was off school on the few days they covered long division, 15 years ago or so, and never bothered to learn it. To this day I never had a clue how to do it... but i don't think i'll ever forget divide, multiply and subtract, bring it on down and bring it on back.

I think the excess bureaucracy in teaching these days takes away from teachers being able to tailor and refine their methods to deliver things in a memorable way.

Your video, A Mathematician's Perspective on the Divide, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Do you know who "those people" are? I don't.

There are some people whose ideology is easily identified and most likely well-entrenched: KKK, white supremacists, nazis, take your pick. They are difficult to talk to and even more difficult to persuade.

I happen to live near a popular gathering spot for nazis (real nazis, not just someone you don't like) and have tried many times over the years: it's no bueno.

But that's only the hard core, a fraction of the ~60 million votes for Trump. If you put all of them into the corner of shame and refuse to interact with them, much less try to understand their point of view, you'll never know their reasoning for voting the way they did. You'll only push them away, reinforcing any feeling of being left behind or ignored by the, for a lack of a better word, liberals. That's no bueno either. Want to see how that turns out? Look at the state of Brandenburg in Germany.

You can either try to breach their echo chamber in an attempt to convince them of your perspective or you'll end up with either an even more divided country than before or a second Trump presidency (or Trump 2.0). It's an uncomfortable thing to do, but looking at the emergence of safe spaces, trigger warnings, blatant groupthink and whatnot on certain university campuses, some people seem to have become outright allergic towards differing opinions -- that's highly unhealthy for a society.