Master-Debater131

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/01/politics/nancy-pelosi-taiwan-visit/index.html Shes going. CNN is reporting that Pelosi will go to Taiwan on Tuesday and spend the night in Taipei. China keeps huffing and puffing, but I really doubt they actually do anything.

The NFL has a well established policy of caring more about the money they get from the Military than women.

When you break this down this means the NFL values women at approximately 1 quarter of play per assault. Remember that the next time the NFL tries to say that they care with all those pink ribbons.

This is frankly what a lot of people keep missing when looking at the current state of the Democratic majority. Biden, and Dems, won not because of Biden but because of Trump. 2020 was a referendum on Trump where the majority of Americans said "fuck that" and went with the definition of establishment candidate in Biden. He wasnt elected to be the next FDR, he was elected to be a boring not-Trump President. But then some in his party, and eventually Biden himself, thought they had a mandate to jerk this country to the Left and try and push through a wildly progressive agenda. That wasnt what got him elected. The math in Congress wasnt ever going to let that kind of agenda pass, and so it made it look like Biden and his agenda was a failure. All Biden had to do was be not-Trump and be the most boring President ever and he would be popular. Instead he tried to push through an agenda that no one really wanted, then failed in that push, and now looks totally incompetent.

I dont really disagree with what you said. Thats how the two ends of the spectrum typically work. I dont really think the GOP is a true conservative party anymore though. Between the MAGA-cult and general "own the libs" they act more like a right-wing populist party instead of a truly conservative party. A true conservative party would reign in spending and government when they get the chance. The GOP hasnt done that. They expand government for programs that they like. If its the "right" program, they will absolutely spend money on it. They also have shown no hesitation in wielding the power of the government to do whatever they want. They arent trying to shrink the government like a conservative party would do. Democrats are basically the "Everything else" party. I do think there are some shifts, but I dont think that the GOP is really a true conservative party anymore. A lot of the more traditional conservatives have left the GOP and are floating around. A bunch went to the Democrats, which is a dynamic that will be interesting to see play out. Trump was a political grenade that got rolled into DC. We are still dealing with the fallout both in terms of what it did to the electorate, and what he did on the 6th with his cult. Ill stand by my opinion that I think we are seeing a shift in our political parties. I just dont think we will have a real grasp on what changed for a few more years.

This dude can go fuck himself. Hes a propagandist for the communist party. There is zero chance that China is dumb enough to shoot down her plane. They know that would be an immediate declaration of war on the US, and they arent about to try and do that. God it feels weird to be cheering for Pelosi.

I dont think the parties are quite the way you described them anymore. It was true that Dems were bigger tent and the GOP were smaller tent, but that dynamic has seen some pretty large shifts in recent years. Dems are largely turning into the party of highly educated white people, while the GOP is picking up the working class. Its a dynamic you are seeing play out in local elections across the country. The Dems are alienating large sections of their traditional base by letting the ultra-progressive white people take over the party. The loudest voices are getting the most support, and a lot of their ideas are not supported outside of their elitist bubbles. Thats why you have seen some incredible movement by working class people, particularly Hispanics, toward the GOP. The GOP is growing quickly with the working class, again driven largely by the Hispanic movement toward them. The GOP has a record number of Hispanic candidates this year, and are look to win a bunch of minority-majority districts which is something they had no chance of doing just a few years ago. The idea of the "Demographic Destiny" that would lead to a permanent Democratic majority totally collapsed. Thats going to be a fascinating dynamic to see play out within the GOP. The MAGA-Cult "christian nationalists" against the working class bloc led by a growing number of minority voters. In the long run that working class vote is going to win, simply because there are more working class people than there are maga-cult members. Thats even assuming the maga-cult can survive if/when Trump is charged with a crime and/or loses another election or even in the primary. Democrats are quickly going to have to come to terms with the fact that a lot of their ideas just are not that popular. They are working right now because the GOP are basically one-upping them on the stupid, but that wont be the case forever. A lot of the ideas that play well in the ultra-blue bubbles are completely toxic in the rest of the country. You've already see some of the infighting over the past few years between the progressive members of the House and the centrists in the Senate. Its been relatively peaceful because Dems are in power, once that changes this fall its going to be an all out war between those two blocs. A lot of ills are healed by being in power. Its not like we have seen this happen before either. Bush ran on a "big tent" platform and won then we saw the GOP shrink during the Obama years. These cycles happen in our politics, and we are going through another shift right now.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/jan-committee-deepens-probe-trump-cabinet-sources/story?id=87547851&cid=social_twitter_abcn Jan. 6 committee interviews Mnuchin as probe expands into Trump Cabinet: Sources This is worth keeping an eye on. Sounds like the committee is getting some of the cabinet members to cooperate now.

Mastriano is the single most dangerous candidate in the country this year. Bobo the clown and MTG are idiots, but Mastriano is legitimately dangerous. His ideas are flat out undemocratic and he would represent an existential threat to our nations democracy if he wins. He has flat out said that he has the power to simply ignore the electors and pick who he thinks should win the presidency. He needs to be defeated, and not a close one either. It should be a slaughter so that he and his ideas can be relegated to the trash heap.

I dont really think thats true. Dems are in just as rough a shape with regard to disarray as the GOP are, the difference is that a lot of it is being masked by getting some wins in Congress. Once they are in the minority this fall its going to be a bloodbath with the hardcore progressive wing and the more centrist wing going for blood blaming each other for the loss. Both parties are pretty much a shit show. Its just a difference of what kind of shit show. Dems are going to have an internal war over how far left they want to go, while the GOP is still fighting between the more principled conservatives and the MAGA-Cult. You can hate the "muh both sides!" all you want, but if you take a step back its pretty clear both parties are fracturing right now.

Two new polls out showing Fetterman up on Oz by double digits. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/senate/ I will continue to say that while the national environment favors the GOP, the GOP in Penn is pretty much fucked. They nominated two uniquely bad candidates and happen to be going up against the strongest Dem in this entire cycle in Fetterman. The only thing stopping the GOP from a total sweep this year is the GOP. They nominated some truly awful candidates, and are very likely going to blow easy wins because of it. They learned nothing from Todd Akin.

GDP shrank 0.9% last quarter, officially showing us in a recession. This is the biggest reason why I continue to be so bullish on the GOPs chances this fall even though they have nominated some truly awful candidates. The Economy is the #1 issue for voters by a wide margin, and it doesnt look like things will improve anytime soon. If the economy sucks in November, then it doesnt matter how bad the GOP candidates are, they will win.

I get what you are saying, but the whole "strategic ambiguity" thing has been our playbook since for decades. The One China policy truly exists only on paper. When it comes to actual relations, trade, and military dealings they are two very separate countries. While we officially recognize only One China with Beijing being the capital, we have extensive dealings and relations with Taiwan. We have sold them tons of military assets, and train their military leaders, in a way that we never would with the mainland. The biggest reason we dont support an official independence is because it would guarantee a war and even Taiwan doesnt want to go that far. There is a growing movement within Taiwan to declare independence, but even their government officials wont do it because they know it means war. I fully expect China to declare war and try and take Taiwan by force at some point. We can do what we can to not be the reason they do it, but nothings going to stop their desire to completely take over Taiwan and stomp out its democracy and freedoms.

https://apnews.com/article/china-nancy-pelosi-taiwan-government-and-politics-30bb4a00c7fd0e41c16b6791da6ad4a0 US military making plans in case Pelosi travels to Taiwan " SYDNEY (AP) — Nancy Pelosi hasn’t said if she’s going to Taiwan, but if she does she’d be entering one of the world’s hottest and most contentious spots. While U.S. officials say they have little fear that Beijing would attack the U.S. House speaker’s plane, they are aware that a mishap, misstep or misunderstanding could endanger her safety. So the Pentagon is developing plans for any contingency. Officials told The Associated Press that if Pelosi goes to Taiwan — still an uncertainty — the military would increase its movement of forces and assets in the Indo-Pacific region. They declined to provide details, but said that fighter jets, ships, surveillance assets and other military systems would likely be used to provide overlapping rings of protection for her flight to Taiwan and any time on the ground there. Any foreign travel by a senior U.S. leader requires additional security. But officials said this week that a visit to Taiwan by Pelosi — she would be the highest-ranking U.S. elected official to visit Taiwan since 1997 — would go beyond the usual safety precautions for trips to less risky destinations." You wont hear me say this pretty much ever, but good on her. Pelosi absolutely should go to Taiwan. Fuck China. They dont get to tell us how we interact with our allies. They can claim Taiwan all they want, but it isnt part of China. It hasnt been in decades and is very clearly a self governing democracy. After Russia decided to YOLO it into Ukraine its absolutely imperative that we send clear messages to China about Taiwan. We cant, and hopefully wont, let them roll into the island and stomp out freedom like they did in Hong Kong. For all the talk about Russia being bad and dangerous, China is easily the biggest threat of our time. We need to start acting like its the threat it is.

Honestly, if you gave me $50 Ide be happy. I dont even know how I would react if I got that. I mean, I do. Ide pay off my student loans, car, and mortgage. After taxes and everything you probably would leave with $1.5M or less, but thats still a crap ton of money. I know I said dont burn through your money, buy paying off debts and having assets that are debt-free is a massive advantage in life.

I think there were a bunch of people who won smaller prizes. Still huge amounts of money, but not the jackpot.

I think the NFL offers a class on financial management to the rookies. The NHL does as part of its on boarding process for all new players into the NHL.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/us/mega-millions-jackpot-tuesday/index.html No one won last night. Its now over a billion.

Its actually pretty common for anyone who suddenly comes into money to be broke very quickly. Lottery winners and pro athletes are the two biggest groups of people who go from broke, to rich, to broke. If you dont know how to properly manage your assets its really easy to blow through them quickly. That awesome sports car that you bought? Also have to pay taxes and insurance on it. Gigantic mansion way bigger than you need? Same thing. That "sure thing" investment that your buddy knows of? Might as well just light your cash on fire. Those random really expensive purchases of things because "Hey, Im rich!" add up in a hurry. Managing money can be tricky. If you look at who is actually successful at managing their money its people who already had some understanding of managing money and tend to understand that they shouldnt just buy whatever they want. They keep money in interest earning accounts, hire lawyers to protect them, hire CPAs and finance firms to help manage their money, and dont do stupid shit. If managed properly, winning the lottery can easily mean you will never work another day in your life. However, the people who tend to win the lottery arent the best at managing money or making smart decisions. Also, its now over $1 Billion.

HIMARS are true gamechangers, says Ukraine’s top spy https://news.yahoo.com/himars-true-gamechangers-says-ukraine-101600013.html These things really do seem to be game changers in Ukraine. Since they hit the battlefield Russian advances have seriously slowed or stopped entirely. Ukraine has also been extremely successful at targeting Russian command and control centers. Lots of dead Russian commanders since these systems started to show up.

So BA5 has taken over as the dominant strain here. My office has been decimated from people catching covid. We had a ton of people take a vacation at the start of the month and bring Covid back with them. This wave is really tearing through right now. Which, makes a lot of sense. We saw BA5 coming and its doing exactly what it has done everywhere else its been. The numbers dont totally show the true case values either because people are doing so much at home testing. Those numbers dont get reported, so it skewed the number of official cases.

Some places you can get information on the virus are: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://faq.coronavirus.gov/ https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/world/coronavirus-news-update.html Coronavirus, or Covid, is a virus that caused the pandemic starting a few years ago. It is still considered a pandemic, but has really started to move into an endemic phase where it is simply here forever and not going away. Getting vaccinated is the best way to avoid serious outcomes from the virus, including hospitalizations and death. This is the 3.0 thread after 2.0 was archived in the great clusterfuckering over the past few weeks. Use this for any Covid related posts. Edit: Guess I cant link to the previous thread for some reason. I can access it, but not link to it.

So the Covid thread is also archived. Is that one getting moved or do I have to make a new one for that topic?

I see nothing wrong with this at all. Its not like Amazon has worker policies so horrible that they expect to burn through the entire available worker pool in the next couple years or anything. What could possibly go wrong with bringing that kind of policy to healthcare?

So like, did the Secret Service try and kidnap Pence? It sure looks like they may have been trying to "secure" him by taking him as far away from Congress as possible to prevent the certification of the election. Pence flatly refused to get in a car driven by an SS agent because he thought they would make him disappear. We're really going to need someone to find those missing text messages. No way does something fully disappear in the modern world.