smjjames

Meanwhile, Seth Moulton drops out of the Presidential race.

A bunch of their definitions are kind of arbitrary, trade for example, I don't think even the most hardcore communist fearing conservative thinks being protectionist Trump-style is socialist. Meanwhile, blood red communist China has this hybrid capitalist-socialist economy, so, does that mean free trade is socialism? The problem is that the term 'socialism' has been muddled to near meaninglessness as they acknowledge. I think they should have put Trump down as a comparison, yes, he is unadvowedly capitalistic, but given that they are calling Ttrumps trade position socialist......

I think they should still split it into two groups if it's even 10 because 10 doesn't allow for a whole loit more than soundbites, then again, it's enormously difficult to avoid an 'undercard' group or the possible perception of one. CNN tried to keep it balanced but still ended up with quite different groups. Anyways, since the fourth set of debates (if they're still splitting it into two) use the same qualification rules as the third, there may actually end up being more in that one than the third. edit: Meanwhile, Inslee and Hickenlooper are running for a third Governor term and a Senate bid respectively.

I can't find where I saw it, but an estimate from Stewards Folly's amount adjusted for inflation was a couple hundred billion, Malcador may have it right. Not exactly 'peanuts' but still within the amount the government throws around regularily. I wonder if Trump ever considered how much he would actually pay, maybe he thought he'd just pay 700 million (which is the loss he claims), but it'd really be at several trillion when you take into account the resources, and then theres the societal and management cost. Greenland also lacks the infrastructure (and with a tiny fraction of the US population) for big projects, so, we'd be pouring tons of investiment into what amounts to nation-building. Sure, it has loads of resources, but unlike back in the 1860's where people were unaware of the mineral riches (though there may have been inklings of it), we know just about everything that we can find about resources in and around Greenland, so, Denmark wouldn't be selling it on the cheap if they even wanted to sell it in the first place.

Probably could have let it run another 10 pages, but I suppose during a quiet period is the best time to do so regardless.

It'd still be socialism because conservatives call everything that these days.

Socialist *RIMSHOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!1!!11* edit: Isn't 'strong social controls' in the authoritarian direction though? Not sure what you mean specifically. Or rather, I may not be thinking the same thing you are when you say that.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, you'd think Russians would be leery of 'socialism', right? Anyways, I really doubt that Gabbard would be a VP nominee as she doesn't fill a geographically strategic position and that's usually a consideration. Though it's likely less important than it used to be, it depends on the candidate doing the nomination and what they want or think they need. Pence was definetly picked with a strong geographically strategic consideration (on top of being such a religious fanatic that some of his views are borderline heretical), Kaine doesn't seem to have been picked with a strong consideration in that way. Plus, the only recent VPs who were also-rans in recent times (by which I'm referring to the so called 'modern primary era' that started in the 1970s) are George HW Bush and Joe Biden. So, it's not real common (yes, I know there's a caveat for small sample size). Fakeedit: Going back slightly further (though still in the 1970s) and I find that Spiro Agnew was also an also-ran for Nixon.

Hadn't seen your edit. I've seen something about that with her apparently being targeted by Russians, though it's an odd target because she is polling very low atm, unlike Trump who was polling in top tier status pretty much the whole way. She hasn't even made the third debate yet I don't think, it's possible she might get into the fourth one due to the simple fact of having more time to meet the requirements. edit: She's met the donor requirements (as of 5 days ago on a 538 article) but not the polling requirements yet. So, she may get into the third one. I think it might have something to do with her stance on Syria or something, I'm honestly not sure why they're targeting her as the only pro-Russian thing is the Syria stuff.

Other than the fact that she is one of the few candidates who are military veterans (Pete Buttigeig is one, as is Seth Moulton, but I don't get the sense that is his primary reason, though I can get how that'd be a strong connection for him), probably mostly the 'get us out of wars' and not get into unneccesary conflicts.

How do you pivot hard to the center when you're already center? That metaphor is a bit funky because you're saying a centrist/moderate type who would become even more centrist/moderate. Clearly though, moderates just aren't exciting to the base right now who want an equal and opposite reaction to Trump. As gromnir says, it's pretty much going to come down to whether the Dems are incompetent or not, among other factors. If the Trump admin handled the incoming recession well, then they might have a shot, however, I've heard that they are essentially putting their heads in the sand and not preparing for a recession because they don't want to cause undue panic or something. Not wanting to cause undue panic is understandable, but when a recession does come or it's staring them in the face, then they'll be rushing to slap together one and be wishing that they had at least a basic plan.

I don’t think it’s all media, at least not the media I use. Still, it’s well known that she pissed off a lot of people with her endorsement of Bernie Sanders in 2016. So, not surprised that some would still hold that against her.

Yeah, it's admittedly not a great argument in his favor as it's really just a different flavor of off-the-cuff-ness without the compulsive lying and obsfucation (well, to an exponentially greater degree than most politicians).

Wasn't the El Paso shooter from the Houston or Dallas area or something? Plausible he might have been thinking of that. Interesting that it hasn't gotten more attention*, maybe we've just gotten too used to Uncle Joe being derpy that we don't notice it being worse or more of a problem than nornal. While it's true that he's been gaffe prone for a long time, how do you tell whether it's just his normal off-the-cuff-ness vs some other mental thing? You really can't, unless you're a professional who has directly examined Biden. *Other than maybe not giving ammo to a**hole Trump.

The worst thing with the Trump misfire is that all he had to do was read off the teleprompter and not screw up. I fail to see how he'd mix up Toledo with Dayton and if it was really on the teleprompter, he needs to fire the writer. On Biden, there's also the one where he messed up saying 'poor kids are just as smart as white' kids while immediately self correcting (Trump would just double down saying 'I MEANT WHAT I SAID!') as 'wealthy'. The gaffes are starting to become more cringeworthy in the context of the Presidential contest... and I keep trying to convince myself that it can't be any worse than Trump. At least Biden is willing to admit his mistakes where Trump isn't.

Plausible? Really? I suppose there would be people who want him dead, but it's more likely to be someone who's name hasn't been revealed yet. The timing IS uncanny though. Either way, him suiciding isn't going to stop the case as it's now going to move to the estate, so, if they really wanted to stop the whole thing, it failed. Theres plenty of calls from both sides for an investigation into what failed here.

I don't know whether Walmarts political leanings are Republican or Democrat (most likely Republican), but apparently they also subscribe to the same idea that video games cause mass shootings As edgelordy as you are, that's definetly a good (if sterotyping) way of putting how dumb and unfounded the whole idea of 'video games cause mass shootings' is.

Republicans. While I might disagree with not allowing a path to citizenship on work permits, (or maybe work permits alone, there should be a path to citizenship if they want it, as long as Conservatives don't interpret it as amnesty, whatever that means anymore), something like what you propose could help resolve the shortage in low-mid skill workers. Quote from that article: " One of the driving factors behind the “enormous growth” of undocumented immigrants living in the US in the 1990s and 2000s is the lack of legal avenues for low-skilled immigrants to work in the United States, write Madeleine Sumption and Demetrios Papademetriou at the Migration Policy Institute. " Of course though, immigration hawks apparently don't understand that (or perhaps understand why Americans don't take the jobs) and would rather zero out immigration completely.

Ktchong, wtf are you doing? As Volourn said, I'm not playing this game as it's pure troll.

Haven't had that specific experience, but yeah, my condolences to you daven.

I’d love for it to be put to rest, but no amount of arguing or live action examples (in more ways than one) is apparently going to convince proponents of it that the only ‘good guy with a gun’ isn’t Joe/Jane Random Citizen, it’s going to be a cop. it’ll probably take a shooting at a gun convention to convince them, but even then.....

I get the feeling you're referring to a specific incident where mine owners clashed with the government, but not sure what. Also, that example doesn't seem to me to be equivalent in any way to what GD is getting at. Company owned isn't the same as personal property, for one. In related news, Mexico is looking into taking legal action against the person or firm who sold the shooter the weapon (which was purchased legally) and looking into the (extremely remote Trump-ain't-gonna-let-it-happen) possibility of extraditing the shooter on terrorism grounds. I'm not exactly sure where they're going with this. I mean, we don't go and take legal action against other countries every time Americans get caught in the middle of a terror attack. For the gun thing, if it was illegally accquired, I can see how they might have jurdicision, but if it was legally purchased in the US, how is that going to work? It could also be in part a 'Get your own s**t together or we'll do it for you! Dammit!' thing, despite having their own s**t to get together.

It would definetly be nice if the hyperpartianship was dialed down several orders of magnitude, but tribalism is a real thing, it's just amplified by a variety of factors such as information bubbles/echo chambers.

The point is more that we're dealing with massive numbers and that any number is going to sound alarming no matter what. If it didn't work all that well in Australia, not sure why it keeps getting referred to as a shining example since I didn't know that it didn't work all that well.

The problem though with the assurance that they won't go into a slippery slope is that both sides are stuck in a spiral of escalation because one side (the most vocal of that anyway) keeps yelling slippery slope to even the smallest thing and considers no gun control measures acceptable while the other side gets more and more frustrated and keeps going bigger because there is no agreement on what is acceptable and neither side will budge. As Gromnir mentioned earlier, Congress was barely able to get bump stock legislation through, and that is just about the most useless gun control measure possible. Lets not go down the 'guns are a compesation for **** size' rabbit hole. I mean, there certainly are going to be some who treat it as such (or used as status symbols or whatever), but lets seriously not go down that rabbit hole. I may also be misinterpreting what Gromnir is trying to imply. edit: Despite the two different words for the male sexual organ being of slightly different lengths, it uses the four character * for both, odd.