Danny Dravot

https://mobile.twitter.com/AGHamilton29/status/1330209451492724736 Unfuckinghinged. Does she think “our forces” just tramp all over Germany and take what they want and shoot whoever gets in the way like it’s 1945? I’m really curious where she’s hearing this from. All of their “evidence” is so amazingly bad.

Greg’s problem is that he latches on to small things and makes them big things. Do I like Antifa? No way. I see some unemployed douchebag LARPing as a communist revolutionary in the evenings and I wish there was a way to instantly lobotomize them (same goes for Proud Boys). But I will literally never meet a Proud Boy or Antifa member. This is a country of 325,000,000. If there were even 1,000 assholes terrorizing downtown Portland, it would not constitute “a lot”. Most people are very fucking normal, have reasonable beliefs with zero desire to hit you if you disagree, and they just want to go about their lives. That’s it.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SenMikeShirkey/status/1329925843053899780 I’m tired of conspiratorial idiots on both sides. People were criticizing this guy earlier for ignoring a reporter in the airport on his way to meet with Trump. Now he puts out a statement saying that he met with the President because who wouldn’t do so if given the opportunity, that he pressed him for COVID relief, that he’s seen no evidence of fraud and intends to certify the votes as required by law. In the replies, a bunch of people who can’t wipe away their partisan eye boogers long enough to read a six paragraph statement but still fancy themselves smart are mindlessly calling for him to go to prison. Yeah yeah, deeds not words. I get that. But I hope these types are prepared to eat some crow when Mike Shirkey certifies the vote as expected and Donald takes to Twitter to berate him as a RINO.

The entire affidavit of this witness, if anyone wants to read it. I don’t know where to begin. Maybe like he did, by announcing that my mine is sound. There’s no evidence. It’s just a Venezuelan guy who saw shady stuff in Venezuela and now claims that shady stuff is happening here too. Gee, I wish I was so patriotic towards this country that I could compare its institutions to a dumpy banana republic. Come on, though. All these conspiracy theories and the Knights Templar couldn’t even get a good word? All the coolest whacko theories involve the boys of the KT!

Ok, that’s fair. Sorry if I sounded a little defensive. I have some things that I’m very ardent about, but in general, I try to pick the best from each side to better serve the country. That’s all.

Thanks for thinking you understand me, but I actually rethought a lot of my positions and entirely stopped reading/watching the things someone like Greg pays attention to. I want a public option, I am pro-LGBT, I want police reform and an end to qualified immunity, but I absolutely believe America is the shining city upon the hill and should use diplomatic/military means to push the rest of the world in the right direction. I am absolutely in the center, with Bushy neocon vibes.

https://mobile.twitter.com/AGHamilton29/status/1329604381344489472 This is good news. Some of you will bash Tucker for being Tucker, and for even giving credence to this stuff in the first place, but he’s someone that Trumpists listen to devoutly. If there’s anything that’ll help millions of people come to their senses and accept the course of the nation, it’s this. AG has some other good tweets about Republicans coming out against the Trump, Powell, Giuliani camp. Sasse and Ernst both with recent condemnations, GOP state legislators in several swing states confirming that they have no intention of changing the outcome via electors.

I know you responded to me elsewhere but this is what I really want to respond to. I think one stop shops are great by the way. Centrism is great. A few years ago, I would have looked at the centrists like other people in this thread and described them as “losers who stand for nothing”. Stupid sentiment. First off, nobody on either side gets anywhere without us. Second, I stand more for the things I actually care about than I ever have. Do I care about culture war bullshit? Nah. I care about American patriotism. I care about using diplomacy and the American military to intervene around the world, preventing tragedy and promoting liberal democracy. Bismarck didn’t care about left or right- according to realpolitik, he only cared about advancing his country’s interest. That’s my stance. I’ll argue for Medicaid expansion and LGBT rights, but if you want me in your coalition, I’m going to get something in return. My vote is no longer guaranteed to anyone- it is earned by catering to my world view. Who knows. I just spent two hours getting hammered at the hotel bar with a coworker while we discussed the Malay Emergency and destruction of Elphinstone’s army in 1842. I’m real fun at parties.

The organization for whom I’m working on COVID emergency management has its headquarters established in the conference room of a Hilton (I live and work there). Haven’t flown, but we all wear masks in the office. Between headquarters and our groups actually in the field, we have around 2,000 people and I’d say something like 50 are or have been at some point confirmed COVID positives.

I'd refute this in depth, but I'm actually going to walk down to the hotel restaurant, take my mask off while I eat dinner, sit at least six feet away from any other person at the bar, and enjoy a nice chicken sandwich. Seriously, you pick up on a lot of little things and cram them all together to form some sort of massive government conspiracy. Live your life, this isn't fascism from either side, everything's going to be alright.

Oh c'mon. I've read your posts elsewhere in this thread and you're far more reasonable than this. Trump is a dopey bombastic bigot and a moron who doesn't believe in any part of America, much less its institutions, but he's not a Nazi. This is German fascism (NSFL). This is Trumpism. Honestly, this doesn't bug me because I feel the need to defend Trump. His character can be smeared any which way and I won't really care. This bugs me because it's an affront to actual victims of Nazism.

Don't live within a thousand miles of his district, but Fred Upton seems like what I would like the GOP to be. He's also a huge Cubs fan, apparently, so he isn't perfect.

Thanks for the clarification. In that case, I'd think fixing Medicaid is the thing to do. First, it shouldn't just be poverty line and below. It's complex, but I'm thinking for singles up to, say, $30,000 annual, health insurance premiums should be capped at around 20% of after tax income per month. For families, double that limit to $60,000. Figure out something so that a raise bringing the single guy to $32,000 isn't rejected because it would remove him from the program. Figure out something reasonable for catastrophic caps, copays and deductibles as well. For payment, issue a credit card to all recipients of the program so they can pay providers immediately and then the finalization can be sorted out between the recipient and the government later on down the road.

Then I'm genuinely ignorant here. In my understanding, Medicaid is then a public option. Yes? What's wrong with Medicaid? Obviously, it doesn't work if we're having this discussion.

Exploitative? Is he going to people's houses and forcing them to work for him? No. They are making a choice. I always knew what I was gonna make before I started a job, even when I was a teenager.

Perhaps I don't. The end point is that there should be some way for people who truly can't afford it to enjoy subsidized healthcare insurance, to the point of being free (for the worst cases). Something along the line of capped premiums based on income, with a relatively low cap where you qualify for no subsidies at all. There's a lot more in my post beyond that though which I'd like to hear your thoughts on.

Fair, on the first point. LOL at the second point. You want the government to pay for everything, including wifi and cell phones, but you're going to scoff at the business acumen of a guy who shudders at having to pay his employees an additional seven dollars per hour? If a restaurant has ten people on shift and they all make minimum wage, $15 min wage is going to cost him $930 in the course of one 12 hour day. It's a bit of a simplistic example, but small businesses often live on the margins. To act like this is something that could only be upsetting if the business owner totally sucks at what he does is both wrong and condescending.

So the clerk at the family owned convenience store in Paris, VA, should get the same pay as a McDs worker in NYC? Federal minimum wage ignores COL differences. Additionally, you are correct- McDs would handle it just fine (although they might cut down on labor per shift, thus cutting people's hours if not their jobs). The convenience store in VA would not.

Food and shelter, sure. You get to shop at Aldi's and eat ramen; don't even think about eating steak and enjoying a bottle of wine. You get a cot in a dormitory style room with bare plaster walls. You will subsist. Public option regardless of income? No way. It's not your responsibility to pay my premium when I can afford it. That's unjust. Internet and cell phone? Absolutely not. I want to pay for unlimited data on the newest, latest smart phone and 100GB wifi for my house. And that's fine, because I can afford it. If you can't, then get yourself a flip phone. These things might be important but they're still luxuries. Not a societal responsibility. A lot of stuff in your second section goes against individual choice. I like Amazon. If you don't like Amazon, shop somewhere else. Easy. The evil of a monopoly is that it can rig prices and, while enormous, Amazon isn't doing that. Everything you can do on Amazon, you can also do somewhere else. I work two jobs and own a small business. I sleep in a hotel bed four nights out of the week. If a guy making minimum wage wants to pick up the shifts of lazier coworkers and make twice as much as they do, who are you to stop them? Who are you to stop me? I used to Uber drive. Nobody forced me to do it. If you want to volunteer as an independent contractor for a company like that, then you know what you're getting into. It was easy to make forty extra bucks (back in a time where, for me, forty bucks was a lot) on a Saturday night by just driving out of my garage and turning on an app. If you want Uber to provide healthcare, that possibility is going to disappear and people like 2016 Me will have fewer options. All over something that they knew they weren't getting and didn't particularly want.

I think people who smoke marijuana should be laughed at by their friends and family. Not imprisoned by the federal government. I'm fine with raising the minimum wage. My personal understanding of economics is that it would favor big businesses over small ones and drive up unemployment, but if a fast food worker wants to argue himself out of a job, why should I get in the way?

I can respect this. I don't expect to agree with everybody on everything (and I won't, ever- find another person who wants the government to establish a public option AND sponsor regime change in Turkmenistan, haha). But we need to establish a fair system that acknowledges all voices and respect the outcome that it produces. I didn't like the Democrat reaction in 2016 and the GOP reaction now is 100 times worse.

Define "necessitous". And don't say "needy". I get that. Tell me what this man lacks that makes him necessitous and what you propose we do. I've said it plenty- I'm down for a public option for people who can't afford private health insurance. Drug prices should be kept low by the federal government, if necessary. I'm down for limited time welfare/unemployment/food stamp payments, but ultimately you've got to move towards independence. The feds should, to some extent, help local governments establish shelters for the homeless to keep crime down and prevent people from sleeping on the streets. I don't want people to die unnecessarily. I don't want them to suffer. But obtaining even the slightest amount of luxury in life is your responsibility, nobody else's. If you depend on the "welfare state", you should be subsisting and nothing more.

I suspect a lot of people in this thread are doing what Badger is rightfully criticizing Greg for. Believing democracy is good if it produces the desired outcome and bad if it doesn't. Like thinking that the Senate is broken just because Mitch McConnell is majority leader. Look, even if the people of the USA voted for full communism, I'd continue to believe in the righteousness of the system and cry into my beer while secretly watching jingoistic videos from the Cold War.

And would you give a fuck about democracy if it led to things that you didn't want? If the Republican Party comes back in the form that I want, where we fix campaign finance and all the votes are counted and the GOP advocates limited government with a very small welfare state and a relatively interventionist foreign policy, are you going to call it fair and go along with it or are you going to complain that the system is still broken?

Care to enlighten me on campaign finance? I don't pay much attention to it. Aren't individual contributions capped at like $2,700 per person? I have no idea what timeframe that's spread over or how to get around it, I am genuinely ignorant of this topic.