Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 11, 2016 -> 03:06 PM) Per the article bmags posted, dropping the phase-in point to $0 from $3k would cost 16.5B over 10 years. Oof, then nevermind!

Ok let's be real on this child tax credit thing. If you're making $3k a year, you can't afford yourself, let alone a child. You're on welfare for everything you need in life including shelter, food and healthcare. $1,000 month isn't a paycheck, but it's also not a disincentive to having another kid you can't afford and shouldn't bring into the world. I question the need for that kind of credit given that all of the care for the child is being paid for anyway, but at the end of the day how many people would take advantage of that credit and it's only $1,000. Pretty much a drop in the bucket.

What a colossal failure.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 11, 2016 -> 10:52 AM) Do not forget why so few people have "unendorsed" this disaster - because this remains what a very large fraction of their base wants. He surged to the lead because he told them it was ok to publicly hate certain groups of people because of how they look and who they are. Trump was actually right that Mitt Romney had to kowtow to him in 2012 - because he was the leader of the birther movement and that party's base is people in that movement. They cannot stop being who their party is. I don't think this is totally accurate. Trump benefited from a lot of split votes. There is a large contingent of Trump supporters than I would not like in the party, that's true. But I don't think it's what the party "is," just like I don't think Clinton is what the democratic party "is."

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 11, 2016 -> 09:38 AM) It helps offset the costs of raising a child, but in no way does $1k make it 'profitable' to have a kid. Profitable is relative. Someone making $3k a year isn't paying anything for their kids to begin with.

My interview sort of turned into a joke. Working for that firm would be pretty awful for the work/life balance. 8.5 billable hours a day requirement, plus team meetings, team lead meetings and corporate meetings weekly (not billable). They asked me what kind of hours I work in my current job and I told them 8:45-9 to 5-5:15 with a handful of saturdays a year. They all basically laughed. Seems to be a 60-65 hour work week there. It's not even a pay raise, it's just basically getting a second, part-time job at the same salary. Big pass. I played it up like I was interested. If anything I'll try to turn the offer into a raise at my current place. But good Lord did it make me appreciate my work/life balance at my job, even if I am underpaid a little.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 11, 2016 -> 09:27 AM) Why I support Hillary Clinton: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/201...hild-tax-credit I wanted family and childcare to be the primary focus but I'd rather that be second place to this. That's difficult for me to understand without my morning coffee. Is that system "phasing out" people making over 70k/110k? edit: and if you're lowering the credit to people who pay no income tax, aren't you effectively just paying people $1,000 per kid that they have?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 11, 2016 -> 09:20 AM) They know he's going to lose so he's going to go down "swinging". The GOP then gets to distance themselves from him as he goes down in flames It also helps him set up the "the system is rigged, I would have won if..." narrative.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 11, 2016 -> 09:12 AM) Uh https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/...842546878578688 pretty sure this means his campaign is going Full Breitbart now Good f***ing riddance.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Oct 10, 2016 -> 04:36 PM) Who were you looking for? I'm not an expert in the GOP lineup so I don't know the non-household names, but it seems like they covered their bases pretty well. Well-Established Establishment (Bush, Kasich, Christie) Establishment Up-and-Comers (Rubio, Walker, Jindal) Tea Party Star (Cruz) The Libertarian (Paul) Religious Right bros (Huck, Santorum) Randoms (Trump, Carson, Fiorina) I didn't consider any of those names to be too exciting on a national level. You've got religious guys that have zero shot at a national election (Huck, Santorum, Cruz), you've got has-beens that never gained traction nationally (Jindal, Paul), crazy people (Trump, Cruz), inexperienced people (Trump, Carson, Fiorina), legacy candidate (Bush), and controversial, center right leaning guys like Kasich and Christie. Rubio, Kasich and Bush were the only legitimate candidates and i'm not surprised Bush was immediately ignored. He's a Bush and people are tired of them. Kasich is apparently too reasonable, I guess that's why he never caught on. And Rubio I dunno. Seemed inexperienced at times. I would have begged and pleaded and done everything possible to get Romney or Ryan on the ticket.

Dee Brown abruptly leaves the Illinois program for "personal reasons" regarding his family. Very odd. Wonder what happened.

QUOTE (Tony @ Oct 10, 2016 -> 03:36 PM) This is also the party that put Sarah Palin in the VP chair. From a talent evaluation standpoint, they are like the White Sox of politics... Palin is less excusable from an RNC perspective since she was chosen, not voted in. And it's the RNC's fault for not talking legitimate candidates into run in the primaries. Look at the s*** list of candidates that threw their name in.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 10, 2016 -> 02:56 PM) There is nothing basic about our tax laws, especially those that somehow allow millionaires to pay so much less than they should have paid. Writing off losses is a pretty basic tenant of the tax code.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 10, 2016 -> 02:56 PM) Its just not that easy to debate/argue someone who is all over the place. I think that she sometimes gets lost in the idea because in her mind (whether you agree or not) she has dedicated her life to public service. Then she is pitted against Trump, who has little to no public service in his background and I just think it gets to her that he stands up there and just rails about how she did nothing for "30 years". Maybe she could do a little better if she just kept bringing the tax loss back to his business failure, but I think she loses sight of that and just gets so fed up with a guy (who she probably thinks) is a do nothing blow hard. No matter what, Hillary cant really lose with it, because at the end of the day it really hurts Trump's mystique. Most normal people probably dont have a loss of $100k in any single year, let alone $1bil. It just shows how fast and loose he is. I think her responses are deliberate. She doesn't care that he's taking the losses legally. It sounds horrible to the average joe that a billionaire isn't paying income taxes. Legal or not, it's not "fair," and people will eat that up. If Trump wasn't such a moron he could easily respond to that whole issue by pointing out that every major donor for Hillary has a company that "legally" dodges BILLIONS in taxes every year. Pence sort of addressed this when he asked Kaine if he took any credits or deductions on his taxes. But it was in passing and not very direct.

Sigh, of course a conservative SCOTUS justice disapproves of the protests. Just awful.

What a perfect, perfect Bears game. Competed, showed some things offensively (even against an atrocious defense), Howard and that WR whose name escapes me continue to show promise, and they lost! Also, that performance by Hoyer all but assures that Cutler has played his last game for the Bears right? Why would they go back to him?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 6, 2016 -> 11:48 AM) I played a game at an arcade a while back called Beach head where you pull a VR screen over your head and you are basically the last line of defense on a beach, with invading armies coming out of the sea. You have 360 vision, and it was fun for a little while, but when I was finished i was like "dont need to do that again" I just cant imagine a game that i will want to be fully immersed in that will keep me interested. Im sure they will come out with something, but a roller coaster game just doesnt seem fun to me, visiting places around the world just doesnt seem all that fun. Not to mention if you have the right phone you can spend $15 bucks and create your own VR headset for the same "ride along" experience.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 5, 2016 -> 07:01 PM) Yeah it looks like just french doors opening up to it with screens, but still could be cool. Oh if you had screens that'd be perfect. I thought you meant those huge convertible, open air spaces like you see in mansions in Hawaii or other islands. Those would be amazing to have, but not doable with the bugs here.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 6, 2016 -> 09:07 AM) i honestly have zero interest in any sort of VR. Give me a remote and tv and get off my lawn At least not yet. This reminds me of Nintendo's Virtual Boy from years ago. Oh sweet, you can look around in 3d and pick s*** up. Cool? Wake me when you can play a game like Skyrim or GTA in VR. Then i'll invest in one of the machines.

I dunno man, you'd have about 3 weeks out of the year when you could comfortably open up the space. After that it's bug city.

QUOTE (brett05 @ Oct 5, 2016 -> 02:19 PM) One that has judges that do not create law by their judgements, they align it with what the constitution says. I get the gist of what you're saying here, and I'm generally on the side of Scalia/textualist decisions, but you have to acknowledge both sides becomes activists and "make" law by their decisions (nature of the beast in many situations), and there are both good and bad results when SCOTUS "reads into" the Constitution. Privacy rights, for example, are completely made up, but hugely important. I think the argument you're going for is that you'd rather we have justices that want to stick within their role as reviewers of the law, not creators of the law, in the sense that they will abide by the laws passed by the people (through Congress and state legislatures) except in extreme cases where constitutional rights are infringed without an overwhelming reason to do so.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 5, 2016 -> 10:55 AM) Pence did a good job. Unfortunately he had to spend a lot of time defending the knucklehead that is running for president and Kaine had to be who he wasn't as part of Hillary's strategy (a total attack dog). Unfortunate that the main candidates are so much worse then the running mates / other potential options. I don't agree with Pence on certain social issues, but I do agree with him on quite a few things and would have been willing to vote for him (not my preferred candidate, but one I'd vote for) if I could. Instead I'll vote for neither and stick and stick to my moral values and I think everyone in America who doesn't like either candidate should vote for either one independent (just to stick it to the major two parties and point out how pissed we are) or write-in someone else. Don't vote for someone who is the lesser of two evils, actually reject the system. I literally have talked to almost no one who likes either candidate, yet, most of them are all voting party line. If you want to change the process, speak up, and don't actually vote for the clowns. Help one of the independents win a state or two and use them as your referendum for telling both candidates they suck. Unfortunately from there, we end up putting it back in the hands of our government to pick, but they might actually recognize the statement made by the American people and pick a candidate who isn't one of them. Totally agree.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 5, 2016 -> 10:44 AM) He is taking a hit because he states that his qualifications for President are being a successful great businessman. As of today, he has shown 0 evidence to support that claim. The only evidence we have seen is that in 1 year he said he lost 900 mil. That is the argument. It has nothing to do with whether or not he should have taken losses. It has nothing to do with whether he has paid real estate taxes, sales tax or whatever other thing. When a Democratic donor runs for President on the platform "I am great at business" you better damn believe that I would call them out if they lost 900 bil in a single year. Until that day, I dont really see what the relevance is about whether or not people use tax advantages. None of those donors are running for President on their business record, so its really a red herring. Just to reiterate, it is not about whether he paid taxes, it is about the fact he lost 900 mil in a single year and whether someone who lost that much money is actually qualified to run the United States. I don't think that's the argument. Clinton and Kaine are using the "you didn't pay taxes so you're not funding the military and the poor" argument. I have yet to hear either of them claim that his business loss is an indication of his lack of business expertise. edit: nor do I believe that losing 900 million is really indicative of his business skills or lack thereof. Billionaires lose a s*** ton of money based on their holdings routinely. Zuckerberg and Gates recently lost BILLIONS because of Brexit (http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/06/bill-gates-zuckerberg-lose-3-4-billion-brexit/). (note: I am NOT arguing positively that Trump is some great expert at business.)

So let me get this straight: when people complain that a large chunk of the population pays no federal income tax, the response is that's not really true since they pay a variety of other taxes. When a rich person pays no federal income tax, it's a huge sin and it doesn't matter that he has generated hundreds of millions in other taxes, and also paid his own share of sales taxes and other taxes. Look, at the end of the day Trump's a scheming, greedy POS. But Pence is right - the fact that he paid zero federal income tax due to a huge loss is simply a part of our tax code. Perhaps that should be changed, perhaps not. But it's BS to hit a guy for taking advantage of the law. We all take deductions and credits and therefore we too have taken money way from our military and the poor. edit: it's also humorous that democrats complain about this when some of the biggest donors to the democratic party run companies that dodge taxes in the US because the tax code allows it.

Agreed on voting no for the the pool. My parents always had one and I enjoyed it as a kid/teenager/young adult, but once my other siblings moved out and I went to college (i'm the youngest) it's rarely been used. My parents never use it. Grandkids use it maybe 3-4 times a year. My dad throws money/time/energy into it for very little gain. So as a kid/young adult i'd vote yes, but as an adult i'd vote hell no. Buy a membership at a local club instead. Patio/bar/bbq area is where I'd go with it. We use our large deck constantly to entertain or just to hang out as a family.