Rip, mi gop

[Bigb23]

Thank you Richard, for you're personal views again, and a weak ass Wiki link.

Operation DETYES.

[Bigb23]

It seems like everytime the military is being hung out to dry there is a Democrat behind it looking to further thier political agenda at the cost of others.

It seems you reply with your OWN personal views, and not any factual links, except for a poor Wiki.

[bibs]

Is this the voter fraud that the GOP said was rampant. So glad they finally found it.

[Honky Tonk]

Thank you Richard, for you're personal views again, and a weak ass Wiki link.

Operation DETYES.

It seems you reply with your OWN personal views, and not any factual links, except for a poor Wiki.

Must be some good shit you're smoking, Bigb, you already posted the same thing twice in a row. Have another hit, change the words around, and post it a third time. You'll come off sounding like a real intellectual.

[401don]

When the level of discourse in a thread on this website starts to mirror anything one would expect to see in sites like the Freep, I realize there really is no hope for American politics, at least in the near future.

[Bigb23]

Must be some good shit you're smoking, Bigb, you already posted the same thing twice in a row. Have another hit, change the words around, and post it a third time. You'll come off sounding like a real intellectual.

Drinking now, Honk - we'll see soon in my legal [[mellow) mode, dude. Awright?

And I'm one of your true followers. #1 fan.

[Honky Tonk]

Drinking now, Honk - we'll see soon in my legal [[mellow) mode, dude. Awright?

And I'm one of your true followers. #1 fan.

Don't follow me, I'll lead you astray. Carry on.

[Danny]

YAY Whitmer!

Change those republic gerrymandering districts.

Hail Whitmer!

[Canadian Visitor]

Do European countries have this gerrymandering problem?

No.

Most European countries do not have FPTP electoral systems or at least not pure ones.

[[First Past the Post).

Most have some variant of proportional representation.

Which means that assuming there are local seats, that a party that had fewer than its share of the votes would automatically be topped up to its 'fair share' of seats.

For a primer on this system, see here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propor...ctoral_systems

PR is in effect in:

Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Among other places.

The United States, Canada and Britain retain FPTP. [[The system of local elections in which the person w/the most votes wins, whether they got 50% plus one or not).

***

This problem doesn't really existing in Canada either, FPTP notwithstanding.

We don't let the politicians draw the lines. [[we used to, this was changed in the 60s, after gerrymandering became an issue)

Instead we appoint eminent panels, non-partisan, led by a sitting judge, who review census data, draw-up proposals, and then hold public hearings on changes to ridings [[districts).

The effort is always to be non-controversial, fact-based, and to obtain all-party support for changes.

https://www.vox.com/2014/4/15/560428...ow-to-fix-them

[Richard]

It is changing though in France and Spain,people are protesting about densely populated Madrid and Paris having all the power to determine the outcome for the less populated rest of the country.

Thats what it is really,about equal representation regardless of population density otherwise on a national scale you have a few population centers dictating to the entire country and the same on the state level.

I think that is why so many were confused with the electoral college thing.

I am not sure of how adding more layers of government would help in this country since the existing ones are having a complicated time as it is.

Local representation is allready based on popular vote the presidential vote is not for the reason above.

[Worldsgreatest]

And they cant be kicked out soon enough. I used to be a moderate but after seeing ten years of complete GOP control in Michigan it's a big fat NO from me.

Ten years and they ruined our public schools, subverted our democracy and poisoned an entire city. No self respecting Michigander should ever vote for a GOP candidate ever again. Never forget.

[Bigdd]

Ten years and they ruined our public schools,

How's that?

Was it by putting WAY too much money into the Detroit school system?

[Gistok]

How's that?

Was it by putting WAY too much money into the Detroit school system?

Guess again....

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/ne...te/1588646002/

Charter schools was supposed to be the big Republican panacea for fixing schools... that Betsy 'scAMWAY' Devos was promoting before you know who in Washington made her Education Secretary. This ill-fated scheme was an idea of the 'privatize prone' Republicans.

[Scottathew]

And they cant be kicked out soon enough. I used to be a moderate but after seeing ten years of complete GOP control in Michigan it's a big fat NO from me.

I'm the same way. Back in the early 00's I was young, religious, and a conservative Republican.

However, after I graduated college and got into the real world I started having a more diverse group of friends and coworkers. I had gay and Muslim friends. I started see more of what was out in the world and I realized that I had been groomed by certain key people [[friends, politicians, church) to have hate and fear towards many minority groups.

In the aftermath of our decisions in Iraq that resulted in tens if not hundreds of thousands of dead, innocent Iraqis, it was one political party that was trying to tell me that it was OK. I even had "Christian" friends try to justify our invasion of Iraq even with the knowledge we have today that there were no WMD's.

"Fiscal conservatism" of the Republicans is a joke, as we have watched the annual deficits rise while the Republicans controlled EVERYTHING for the first two years of the Trump era.

My experience with the intertwining of the Christian faith and the Republican party has sent me running away from both.

[Meddle]

Gray
Old
Prudes


Can't go extinct soon enough for me.

[Bigdd]

Guess again....

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/ne...te/1588646002/

Charter schools was supposed to be the big Republican panacea for fixing schools... that Betsy 'scAMWAY' Devos was promoting before you know who in Washington made her Education Secretary. This ill-fated scheme was an idea of the 'privatize prone' Republicans.

There may well not be a way to correct the devastation the Democrats have wrought.

But it's silly to blame the GOP for a proposed solution that only had mixed success.

Allowing charter schools didn't CAUSE the Detroit school system to be simultaneously the most expensive, AND the worst performing district in the nation. DPS was the worst in the nation long before charter schools came around.

[Bigdd]

as we have watched the annual deficits rise while the Republicans controlled EVERYTHING for the first two years of the Trump era.

You DO realize that like 76% of the federal budget is Social Security and entitlements right?

Now try to guess which party likes to promise to give away hundreds of trillions of dollars that it doesn't have, in exchange for votes for itself? [[I.E. treason)


How on earth will we pay for ANY of that? The only shred of hope we have is to shift the economy into high gear, and shove the gas pedal flat to the floor,.. and hope we can add enough people to the tax roles, and remove enough people from the welfare roles that we can the shift the date when we become Venezuela as far into the future as possible.

Shutting down energy, putting unnecessary restrictions on business and raising taxes on business so they are forced to leave the country to compete doesn't work.

[Worldsgreatest]

How's that?

Was it by putting WAY too much money into the Detroit school system?

Two words... Charter Schools.

Has nothing to do with Detroit.

[Bigdd]

Two words... Charter Schools.

Has nothing to do with Detroit.

Can you explain what do you mean by that?

[Canadian Visitor]

Now try to guess which party likes to promise to give away hundreds of trillions of dollars that it doesn't have, in exchange for votes for itself? [[I.E. treason)

You do realize the above is hyperbole, nonsense and partisan vitriol right?

The entire annual US Federal budget is a bit over 4.7 Trillion. No one is promising hundreds of trillions of dollars for anything.

https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-feder...akdown-3305789

You are welcome to have a political preference. You are welcome to prefer greater fiscal prudence [[hopefully from both major parties).

You are not welcome to make stuff up.

Go read the facts. Then publish those, with citations and links, and then render an informed opinion.

***

PS, big spending may or may not be wise [[how big, and on what?) but it is not treasonous. If deficits are treasonous then I would suppose you would favour charging every Republican president for the last 1/2 century w/treason?

***

Also, there have been 2 'entitlement' expansions of note since the year 2000.

1) Medicare Part D - Drugs - Proposed and Signed by Republican President Bush

2) Medicaid Expansion - Obama

Which do you suppose was the more expensive?

Ding Ding, you win the prize if you said the Republican expansion, which will cost a bit over 100B this year; while Medicaid expansion runs in the 65B range.

https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-b...and-financing/

Imagine how much more proud of yourself you'd be if you knew what you were talking about!

*****

How on earth will we pay for ANY of that? The only shred of hope we have is to shift the economy into high gear, and shove the gas pedal flat to the floor,.. and hope we can add enough people to the tax roles, and remove enough people from the welfare roles that we can the shift the date when we become Venezuela as far into the future as possible.

The US has a relatively meagre welfare state.

But the highest uptake of Federal welfare programs is in Republican jurisdictions, where poverty is highest.

https://www.lexingtonlaw.com/blog/fi...tatistics.html


If you wanted to examine how the 'discretionary' part of the Federal budget is spent......

Once you include the OCO fund, then military spending is $989 billion. It's spread out among different agencies and budget categories, so you must add it all together. It includes:

• Defense Department base budget: $576 billion.
• DoD Overseas Contingency Operations: $174 billion.
• Departments that support defense: $212.9 billion. They include the Department of Veterans Affairs, State Department, Homeland Security, FBI and Cybersecurity, and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
• Emergency funding for support departments: $26.1 billion.

From here: https://www.thebalance.com/current-u...ending-3305763

***

If you want to fix the US deficit the answer is both reductions in military spending [[just cut the overseas bit to zero)

Then impose a national, broad sales tax at 5% [[yes, I know that requires a constitutional amendment)

But it would raise 270B per year.

https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2016/52285

Also required is raising the retirement age to 68 or higher.

And raising the minimum age to receive non-disability based benefits to 65 or higher.

https://www.crfb.org/blogs/raising-e...getand-economy

Canada needs to do that to, even though our pension system is fully funded. It would allow more generous benefits.

[Jimaz]

How Fox News and Right-Wing Media Brainwashed This Dad and Destroyed a Family

• The Brainwashing Of My Dad

[Honky Tonk]

How Fox News and Right-Wing Media Brainwashed This Dad and Destroyed a Family

• The Brainwashing Of My Dad

As told by his brainwashed left-wing son.

[Scottathew]

You DO realize that like 76% of the federal budget is Social Security and entitlements right?

That still does not explain how Republicans pissed away even more money. What does explain it is the huge tax breaks for the ultra-rich they passed [[which was more important than balancing the budget to the fully Republican controlled government). But don't worry, some of the breadcrumbs have hit the floor for us.

[Honky Tonk]

I'm the same way. Back in the early 00's I was young, religious, and a conservative Republican.

However, after I graduated college and got into the real world I started having a more diverse group of friends and coworkers. I had gay and Muslim friends. I started see more of what was out in the world and I realized that I had been groomed by certain key people [[friends, politicians, church) to have hate and fear towards many minority groups.

In the aftermath of our decisions in Iraq that resulted in tens if not hundreds of thousands of dead, innocent Iraqis, it was one political party that was trying to tell me that it was OK. I even had "Christian" friends try to justify our invasion of Iraq even with the knowledge we have today that there were no WMD's.

"Fiscal conservatism" of the Republicans is a joke, as we have watched the annual deficits rise while the Republicans controlled EVERYTHING for the first two years of the Trump era.

My experience with the intertwining of the Christian faith and the Republican party has sent me running away from both.

Interesting. I have Muslim friends justifying the attack and destruction of the Trade Towers, and the people inside.

[Scottathew]

Interesting. I have Muslim friends justifying the attack and destruction of the Trade Towers, and the people inside.

I've never met a single person of any background that has done that.