Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 26, 2017 -> 10:30 AM) I honestly can't say the Bulls have ruined Niko, this guy was just never good. He had one good month his rookie year and everyone kind of wents nuts about him. Besides that, he's been bad the whole time. He was really good the 2nd half of last year after the appendectomy stuff. He could actually hit shots. But certainly he has not/did not live up to the hype and he's never going to be that player they/we were hoping he would be.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 26, 2017 -> 01:04 PM) Weird, I was under the impression there were a lot of poor minorities in southern states. Yeah and he won a lot of those states convincingly. Point being, even if we assume lower black turnout was ENTIRELY due to suppression efforts, in MOST states it still wouldn't have mattered. In close states maybe it did. But i'd like a study showing actual figures of votes that were suppressed due to direct efforts on the part of the GOP. My hunch is it doesn't have the impact you guys believe, but I could be wrong.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 26, 2017 -> 12:59 PM) Buy the EC is a state wide election, as are governorships and Senate seats. If you win by 20k votes and suppressed b21k city votes, it doesn't matter that "the city" still voted Democratic. Right, but in most states with large populations of poor minorities you're in states that are pro-democrat anyway - California, Illinois, New York, etc. States like Wisconsin and Michigan may be close, but I just have a really hard time believing 80k people didn't vote because of suppression efforts when it looks like (without doing a deep dive) voter turnout for certain groups, like inner-city blacks, were down across the country and seemingly at the same rates. I don't recall reading stories that black voter turnout in detroit was down 60% versus something like 20% in other states.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 26, 2017 -> 12:58 PM) It may not be easier to get that id of you live in the city and they've shut down the local dmv's and severely limited the hours. These are things that have happened and will continue to happen. Voter suppression plays a role in politics. Saying "it caused this outcome" in a particular case is hard to say with certainty, but while you chose to highlight the EV margin, that obscures that the number of votes he won those states by was really only a handful, about 80k. There's lots of stuff out there on how this type of voter suppression works in theory and in practice. I honestly don't know the answer to this - have their been studies to figure out how many votes we're talking about here? 80k in a single state seems like an awful lot when you're talking about misinformation tactics. This is why i'm fully behind mail in ballots in every state. Get rid of this argument once and for all.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 26, 2017 -> 12:52 PM) How so? I just don't get how there was never a necessity to have an ID to vote from the get go. How do they moderate if people already voted? How they do they know an individual is a legal citizen from that state? Don't poor conservatives typically live out in the sticks and poor liberals typically live in big cities? I would imagine it's easier to get an ID in the south side of Chicago than it would be in Appalachia no? People really think these policies are the reason Trump won by 77 electoral votes? The voter suppression stuff is confusing to me because even where it exists it doesn't change the outcome. If poor minorities are the target, where do poor minorities live? In big cities. Which vote democrat anyway.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 26, 2017 -> 11:18 AM) Here's the basic problem with this logic: you're using Donald Trump as an example of successfully firing up his base, when he: 1. Lost the popular vote badly 2. Would have lost in a blowout, with a bigger vote difference than the 2012 election, had it not been for the intervention of the FBI and crimes committed by a foreign power to aid him 3. Might very well have lost despite the others had it not been for voter suppression laws 4. Might very well have lost despite all the others had the media not gone along with #2. How much of a lesson can you take from a race decided by the FBI director as much as anything else? I read this and literally imagine you as Trump complaining about his media coverage. Just a bunch of sour grapes.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 01:13 PM) It could be, or it could turn a battle into a war. http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/shootings/ When you look at the map, youll notice a good majority of the shootings are in a few areas. Some believe that if you were to really police those areas, it would result in the criminals dispersing to the other areas and cause a decline in property values etc. Now I dont know if its true or not. Obviously I am not going to turn away a free handout, but when it comes to my dealings with Trump, I know that nothing is ever "free". Rahm trolled Trump about federal assistance (great wed love to have you enforce gun laws at the federal level) and part of me just believes that this "offer" is nothing more than some sort of political game. Who knows, but I am always very suspicious of "great offers" from people who seemingly disagree with me. If he can solve the problem great, but it could also turn into a quagmire. Not sure how it could get worse. But I agree that the crime/criminals could disperse. I believe in the conspiracy theory that the city/county and surrounding municipalities purposefully allow some of that stuff to happen in those pockets so it won't spill out and affect the whole region.

Trump's tweet about Chicago crime is kind of funny. It's sad that the reaction from Chicago politicians has been "we're fine, go away." No, it's clearly not fine. Outside assistance would probably be a beneficial thing.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 10:54 AM) Obama was in the wrong. But, Congress also had a responsibility to work together with the president and reach a compromise. They never even tried, not really. They just punted the problem down the line. And you're realistically going to gather up 11-12 million people, and evict them all...especially all the kids under 18 who grew up here? Even for the GOP, few have positions that extreme, and yet that would be technically carrying out the law. Well, that makes no sense after the money for education has already been invested in them. Quite a few of the kids don't even speak much more than barely passable Spanish. And a lot of those undocumented workers were already contributing to the economy by paying sales tax, rent or property tax (which was then paid by landlord/owner), etc. Obama, fwiw, has deported 2.5 million already, and there are 800-900,000 remaining with criminal backgrounds who also should becsent back, with more extreme penalties for trying to come back again if they had committed felonies. Agree, and criticism of Obama's move doesn't excuse GOP members of Congress.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 10:53 AM) Just to be accurate, Obama did not stop enforcement of immigration laws - the most recent number I can find shows 2.5M deportions between 2009-2015. The executive order provided semi-legal status to people who were brought to the US as children. We can argue about whether the executive order was overreaching, but let's not mischaracterize what it was. To SSK's point, executive orders are tough. When Congress slows down appointments in the executive to the point that departments can't function, Executive Orders are a reasonable mechanism to keep government working. BUT they are obviously a power that can be abused (and have been abused). It was more than that. The 2nd order expanded the initial DREAMERS order. Regardless, even though I was in favor of the move itself (allowing certain illegals that are already here to file for quick status if they passed certain criteria), I still argued against it being done unilaterally by the President. What's the point of having a legislature passing laws if the laws can be ignored per the directives of the President?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 25, 2017 -> 10:31 AM) Now we are seeing why the slow expansion of powers in the Presidency over the years is such a dangerous thing. We have watched each subsequent President take things a little bit further, until when we got a true lunatic in office, he is taking full advantage of all of these things without any sort of Presidential type of respect for this level of power. Trump has literally cut out Congress and is ruling by decree now. This why the Executive Order has always been dangerous and IMO should have been unconstitutional all along. Those who were fine with Obama enacting an order to stop enforcement of immigration laws now see a problem with Trump enacting an order limiting immigration. Reap what you sow.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Jan 23, 2017 -> 04:27 PM) Exactly. So maybe we should be trying to figure out why healthcare costs so much in this country instead of blaming the insurance companies who are more or less the middlemen and have no control over those costs. Although at this point I fear it's akin to trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube. I doubt many doctors are going to want to give up their 6 and 7 figure incomes. They set the price though, so I wouldn't call them middle men without control.

So, I spent 1.5 hours on this over the weekend trying to find a solution to my home theater problem. The easiest fix was the most obvious one: I unplugged the receiver for a few minutes and then plugged it back in and it suddenly worked. Apparently hitting the power button wasn't resetting everything. ARC problem is now fixed. Good tip in the future: with electronics, just power down and reset!

Doesn't he have immunity from suits/discovery while in office? Doubt those discovery requests go anywhere.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 23, 2017 -> 10:13 AM) Jenks, I think he is suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. Otherwise who even cares? Its like arguing that the Bulls had more people at their Championship parade than the Lakers. Trump won, it doesnt matter if only 1 person showed up. Its the same with his comment about TV ratings or how big his crowd is at the CIA. All of this should be completely trivial. The only other option is that Trump is far more deceptive/devious than we ever imagined, and this is merely sleight of hand to distract from things like the fact he now wont release his tax return or that he wont put his assets in a blind trust. That should be relevant news, but seemingly has gotten buried under "alternative facts." I don't think it is. I don't think there's a nefarious reason for doing what he does. I think he's just a moron and doesn't understand PR or the internet or the fact that the more ammo you give the media, the more the media is going to embarrass/criticize you.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 23, 2017 -> 10:05 AM) What some people are cautioning is that it's a form of signaling/loyalty testing that autocratic regimes have used before. Push out stories or statements that are so obviously false and easily shown to be so, and watch who still defends them nevertheless. These people can be considered loyal to you, and those who were hesitant or cautioned against it should be purged out. It also conditions supporters to go deeper into the "you can only believe what we tell you" mindset where any source or piece of information that is derided by the leadership is not to be trusted. At this point I'm more inclined to believe it's just his pathetic narcissism driving it and not some grand Machiavellian strategy, but he does have Steve Bannon whispering in his ear and writing his speeches so it's definitely something to keep an eye on. There's no way I buy that he or his people are smart enough to pull off some grand fascist dictatorship dream. This is all about him being butt hurt over the smallest of slights and not being able to handle it like an adult. The NYT has an article this morning that supports this idea. Apparently a lot of his senior aides were comfortable that he understood the CIA visit over the weekend was a way to mend bridges so to speak. And as soon as Trump got there and started speaking their plan/preparation all went to s*** and they were back in damage control.

And what kills me about the crowd size issue, if you had problems with the way your inauguration was covered in the media vs. Obama, fine. Reasonable people will disagree, but attack that issue and complain all you want. That fits your "us vs them" campaign theme. But why go the extra step and tell blatant lies that are easily proven false? You just set yourself up for MORE embarrassment and MORE scrutiny.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 23, 2017 -> 09:05 AM) Rocky First Weekend for Trump Troubles Even His Top Aides A most dreadful inaugural address By George F. Will What's interesting about his address is how people can take it 2 different ways. If you're a supporter, that's everything you wanted to hear - confirm all the s***ty things about our country and the fact that he's going to be America First ™ and fix all the problems. If you're an opponent or someone who is on the fence, he did nothing to make you hopeful for the next 4 years.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 22, 2017 -> 12:26 PM) So Kellyanne used the term alternative facts for Spicer's press conference yesterday. When pressed on it, she went to GOP talking points, never answering and then calling out some bad info the press gave about a bust being removed. That she called a lie, not an alternate fact. And then went on about how unfair the press is to the new administration. I just wonder how long this can go on. I watched that interview with Chuck Todd this morning in real time and just could not believe it was happening. We have entered the Twilight Zone.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 01:59 PM) Increased taxes here, less breaks there, increased rates here. It's not going to get better for the middle and working class. Lol, ah yes, I forgot the last 8 years was all tax cut/break policy.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 01:59 PM) The value of $400 varies pretty greatly as you move down the financial spectrum. $400 with an annual gross income of $30,000 is substantial. $400 with an annual gross income of $200,000 is pretty insubstantial. The point here is that it's pulling a benefit from the lower end of the spectrum. I haven't seen a policy reason for it yet, so can't speak to the motivation behind it. For the record, I'm glad to see that Jenks has come out firmly against tax breaks over the last couple weeks. First, the shrug reaction to the small band of the upper middle class whose taxes will go up under Trump's tax plan. Now, the shrug reaction to the Trump administration taking a $400 benefit away from the lower income homeowners... Nah, i'm against it. I just don't like when people go to the extremes.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 01:56 PM) I think we'll find out who the Democratic forerunner is in two years at the midterms. Some of the Democrats are going to build themselves on fighting Trump. Godfather 2020!

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 01:36 PM) lol can you imagine if Obama screwed the avg person out of $400/year how you'd have reacted? Yah, I wouldn't have cared. I was the one arguing that the increase on upper middle class taxes of $1500-2500 under Trump's plan wasn't a big deal.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 01:26 PM) Well, he immediately made it more expensive for people to purchase homes. So already hurting the middle class. $400 hardly seems like a make or break amount of money on the purchase of a home. Not saying it isn't s***ty, but lets put it into perspective when we make claims like it's going to screw poor people and stop them from buying homes.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 01:26 PM) Well, he immediately made it more expensive for people to purchase homes. So already hurting the middle class. To be fair, he blocked a small reduction that was supposed to go into place on the 25th. It's not like he raised taxes. And it's a pretty minimal reduction. I think the average benefit was like ~400 for the year.