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Todd Gack

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Posts posted by Todd Gack

  1. 29 minutes ago, bolverk said:

    WTF ethnicity is the name "Menashi?" I mean, is it French, German, Irish, or god forbid Polish? I mean, yeah, the dude looks white, but what ethnic brand of white is he?

    Because, apparently, that shit matters to having a functional democracy.

    I think it's Dutch.

    • Like 3
  2. FYI
     
    Candidates who have qualified for the September debates in both polling and fundraising:
    1. Former Vice President Joe Biden
    2. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker
    3. Mayor Pete Buttigieg
    4. California Sen. Kamala Harris
    5. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar
    6. Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke
    7. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders
    8. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
    9. Businessman Andrew Yang
     
    There are now 11 Democrats who say they received contributions from at least 130,000 individuals, coming from at least 400 unique donors in 20 or more states.
    Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii have reached their fundraising threshold, but still need to hit their polling minimum to qualify. Castro and billionaire Tom Steyer have each received three of their four necessary polls. Gabbard and former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper each have one. All other candidates haven't reached above 2% in any qualifying polls.
    The DNC requires that all polls be conducted by an approved pollster, released between June 28 and August 28, 2019, conducted nationally or in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and/or Nevada, and fit a certain question structure.
    The candidate must get above 2% support in four or more polls of this nature, and they cannot be conducted by the same pollster in the same region. There is still a month for candidates who have not yet hit the polling threshold to do so.
    • Like 2
  3. 2 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

    I thought the qualifying polls were all national, not state polls like this one.  Also, I had read last week that Yang already got the polls to qualify for debates 3 and 4:  https://thehill-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/thehill.com/homenews/campaign/455207-yang-qualifies-for-third-and-fourth-democratic-debates

    "In an email sent to campaigns by the DNC on Tuesday that was obtained by The Hill, the committee argued that a July 11 poll from NBC and The Wall Street Journal and a July 19 poll by NBC and SurveyMonkey, would only count as one poll because they were conducted by the same sponsor — NBC."

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/455337-exclusive-dnc-rejects-yang-poll-leaving-him-off-september-debate-stage

  4. 14 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

    She also called out our country's support of al qaeda.  I mean, wow.  Stuff like that is simply unspeakable.  

    I think she focused on the Trump administration's support of al-qaeda, but yeah that was good stuff.  Haven't heard her address the bloat/corruption of the MIC... not sure if anyone touched on it last night. 

  5. This is a really good interview.  Yang is forced to go more in-depth on his UBI plan, stutters thought a couple answers, but he concedes that some tweaking will be necessary for it to work for (almost) all citizens.  Good back and forth.

     

  6. 15 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

    WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS LEGAL jesus fucking christ.

    even if it were NOT legal, we should STILL treat them with compassion.

    we don't have to be evil. we are abusing these people on purpose.

    these are fucking human beings!

    THIS IS NOT NECESSARY. can you admit we can do better? 

    I think this is the disconnect b/t you and slorch.  Only one of you views these people as having equal humanity to yourselves.  It would appear that the first step in the condoning of torture and other human rights abuses has been successfully implemented - that being the dehumanization of the 'others'.  

    Hypothetically, if say, Louisiana closed its borders, started detaining all Texans who tried to cross, and treated them the way our govt is treating the migrants, I bet slorch would be condemning the absence of compassion and human decency similar to that which is occurring at the border.

  7. 11 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

    But Trump support isn't at 50-50.  He's consistently about 42 - 53, both in approval and against the major Dem candidates, and that's counting states like Mississippi that we should just fucking write off.   And plenty of voters in the approval column can't stand him but would live with Hitler if the economy stays as is.  They'll peel away the second the recession hits, no matter what arguments you make.   There is a already critical mass against Trump.  Now is the time to give the rest of them no quarter, in my opinion. 

    The election is next year, do you know something that we don't?  Haven't you heard, we're in the greatest economy in the history of ever.  #tiredofwinning 

  8. 21 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

    Everyone is too quick to write Biden’s epitaph based on this one debate, but I don’t see that yet.

    I will say one thing, however, he looked old

    yep.  sounded old too.  reminded me of Lee Corso trying to get through a two-sentence thought coherently.

  9. 7 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    Neither do I. The purpose of a UBI is to provide a UNIVERSAL Basic Income. Yang's plan fails on the first word and does so for incomprehensible reasons. (I'm lying, the reasons are extremely understandable... Silicon Valley guys fucking hate the poor.)

    The families who rely on government benefits will absolutely be affected, negatively. As everyone who isn't in poverty gets $12k/year, everything gets more expensive and the poor now have to compete in the market with even FEWER resources than they had before relative to their market competition.

    Oh, and this scheme is funded by taxes paid by those poor people. Very cool.

    So, in the meantime, why exclude them from the "U"BI?

    What about actually engaging in the conversation instead of just being happy about "starting" it? (This has been a big idea well before Yang, but whatever.)

    Pete and Yang both operate on a level of participation trophy that's embarrassing to see from men who want to become president.

    (Also, his messaging is a 100% lie. He makes it sound universal. It isn't.)

    Points well taken.  Hard to call something universal if it excludes any significant portion of the population.

    Not sure I agree on the idea of the poor funding it in any meaningful way.  It's a shitload of cash to distribute and a large portion will come from a value added tax on the biggest tech companies.  Can't imagine the poor will have any tax increase at all as a result of UBI.

    And I agree on engaging in the conversation - I hope some of these issues are raised on the debate stage.

  10. 6 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    The general means test is that you don't get something if you're too rich, but Yang's UBI is the wrong direction: You don't get it if you're too poor.

    It's very, very stupid.

    Furthermore, limiting the idea of "receiving government assistance" to only the assistance provided to the poor is yet another anti-poor issue with Yang's UBI scheme. What about military contractors whose entire livelihood is taxpayer money? What about income from firms who survived because of bailouts? What about income from businesses that utilize government infrastructure projects (oops, all of them) or those who used government loans/grants to start or grow?

    UBI can be a good idea. Andrew Yang's UBI is garbage. But he's a Silicon Valley guy, so that's kind of how that whole thing goes with that sort of person.

    This is a gimmick and a joke.

    So the objection is that it doesn't address extreme poverty and I would agree.  Those families receiving 2k, 3k, whatever per month in food stamps and housing stipends will be unaffected, but I don't think the point of his UBI is to fix that.  I imagine the very poor on the fringes will need more fundamental changes to our education, housing, and prison systems.  Real reform that will likely happen only when our current environment of scarcity is less of a factor on people's lives.  

    I think Yang's idea is a great start.  He won't win, but starting the conversation and doing so in good faith is what has endeared him to so many people.

  11. 6 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    UBI is a good idea. Yang's version is bad because it means tests in the wrong direction and seems to ensure that the only people who get it are the ones who don't need it.

    Can you elaborate on this?  I've heard him say there is no means testing and it's a universal dividend for all above 18.  The only catch is for those already receiving govt assistance, in that they won't have the 1K on top of their current govt check. They'll need to choose to stand pat with what they've got or opt in and get the 1k unconditional with no oversight or income verification.  And the super rich can check a box and choose to donate their check to a charity. 

  12. Has to be a troll, right?  Maybe not from his toddler mind personally, but from someone close to him.  Kind of a way to control another news cycle... I dunno, I'm honestly dumbfounded as to how a functioning adult would think people would believe such nonsense.  

  13. 17 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    Yang denounced them but there is a weird Yang shadow campaign coming from the alt-right.  The UBI policy seems to be the main attraction because if you’re on the UBI, you can’t take any other government assistance. 

    This has been the position of others in the past, but Yang has said that UBI will make up the difference for someone receiving less than $1k in governmental assistance. So anyone getting $1001 would be SOL unless they opted in to UBI and forfeited their previous assistance. 

    • Like 1
  14. 12 minutes ago, F250 said:

    I don't think Orthodox Jews subscribe to this concept.

    I know jack shit about religion so mea culpa on that one.  However, he has stated that he thinks homosexuality is a sin and that he would never attend a gay wedding.  Or even a jew/non-jew wedding, apparently that's a sin too.   Weird little fellow, he is.

  15. 34 minutes ago, Lurch said:

    I’m sure I’ve nearly blown my speakers when it kicks in in the middle of Right In Two.

    I get not ranking it as high as others, but even if it’s their 5th best album, it’s still in my top 20!

    The last 3-4 minutes of that song are genius, IMO.  I'll often play "try and find the beat" when the riff around 6:45 kicks in... still haven't found it.  But when Danny rolls back in time w/ Adam, it's total eargasm.  I don't know shit about time signatures, but I can't imagine that the drums and guitar are playing in the same one during that part of the song.

  16. 39 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    lol nice

     

    The optics of this aren't great, but Rubin is too stupid to challenge anything policy related.  I can't imagine that interview will be anything but benign.  Shapiro is a smart guy (relatively) and an absolute expert at strawmanning, so I'd tell Mayor Pete to be prepared to deflect the nonsense and not lose his cool - Yang did a fantastic job during his conversation.  Funny enough, Shapiro thinks both Pete and Rubin are going to burn in hell for their gayness.  

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