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Not a Trump fan, but I do know some very intelligent folks that while they did not think he was the best president ever, they liked what he was doing.

it was more than just selfish interest of the rich. Personal household income across the spectrum increased more under Trump than it had in years. Unemployment rates among all groups, but particularly among minorities fell to their lowest levels ever. Much of this was the impact of cutting corporate taxes significantly. The US had among the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Companies had started moving manufacturing back to the US because the penalty of doing business here was decreasing.

But he was no diplomat. I said to my wife often during his presidency, I would never invite the guy over to dinner. He’s not someone I’d want to be around. But I can’t deny the impact on our personal financial situation that was the result of his personal and corporate policies.

Remember that many of the folks who claimed to hate him and called him a racist also attended his wedding years prior as his friend. Watch his appearance on The View before he was a candidate. The hosts on that show are having fun with him and exchanging friendly banter. The whole narrative changed when the media and Hollywood decided to brand him. Then no matter what he said could and was used against him.

Compare this to Biden who was chased out of the primaries in the 1980’s for his history of plagiarism. Then in the 2008 primaries for some of his racist talk. This round it has all been swept under the rug and ignored because anything to defeat Trump.

As far as personal ethics and personal character, both 2016 and 2020 have been among the worst choices of individuals to hold that office that I can recall. And neither side even pretends to care one wit about fiscal responsibility anymore so we can’t vote in that anymore. Now they just promise to print larger checks to buy votes. I have no idea how that’s legal.

Anyway.
 
it was more than just selfish interest of the rich. Personal household income across the spectrum increased more under Trump than it had in years. Unemployment rates among all groups, but particularly among minorities fell to their lowest levels ever. Much of this was the impact of cutting corporate taxes significantly. The US had among the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Companies had started moving manufacturing back to the US because the penalty of doing business here was decreasing.

But he was no diplomat. I said to my wife often during his presidency, I would never invite the guy over to dinner. He’s not someone I’d want to be around. But I can’t deny the impact on our personal financial situation that was the result of his personal and corporate policies.

Remember that many of the folks who claimed to hate him and called him a racist also attended his wedding years prior as his friend. Watch his appearance on The View before he was a candidate. The hosts on that show are having fun with him and exchanging friendly banter. The whole narrative changed when the media and Hollywood decided to brand him. Then no matter what he said could and was used against him.

Compare this to Biden who was chased out of the primaries in the 1980’s for his history of plagiarism. Then in the 2008 primaries for some of his racist talk. This round it has all been swept under the rug and ignored because anything to defeat Trump.

As far as personal ethics and personal character, both 2016 and 2020 have been among the worst choices of individuals to hold that office that I can recall. And neither side even pretends to care one wit about fiscal responsibility anymore so we can’t vote in that anymore. Now they just promise to print larger checks to buy votes. I have no idea how that’s legal.

Anyway.
First of all I'm not a big believer in trickle down economics, it's supply and demand not supply and supply. I don't care how wealthy you are you're not going to buy 10,000 TVs a year.... All that nonsense about unemployment if you look at the trajectory going back to 2008 when the economy tanked under the previous Republican president, unemployment continually went down for the next 11 years starting in 2009. There were more jobs created in the last three years under Obama than the first three under Trump. So while you could say the unemployment rate was lower under him he was just at the tail end of that expansion. It's like a relief picture coming in in the 9th inning when his team is winning 14 to 1 and closing out the game and taking credit for it. I'm not even going to get into the plagiarism nonsense when you look at Donald Trump his entire life is one big scandal and sleazy deal after another. I want to argue that either is perfect but more importantly than would you invite him to dinner would you leave him alone with any female member of your family.....
Exactly financial responsibility is out the window, at least when the economy is in a crisis anyone who has any knowledge or belief in Keynesian economics could understand the government wanting to stop the downward spiral by spending money. But Trump inherited a tremendous economy and then proceeded to spend crap tons of money and cut taxes and run up massive debt when it wasn't needed. You're ignoring the hypocrisy here, I don't remember Democrats really ever talking about fiscal responsibility much which isn't good but at least it's consistent, the Republicans go on and on about the debt whenever there's a Democrat in but if you look over the last 40 years Republican presidencies have added more to our national debt. As for a reasonable corporate tax I'm okay with that but you have to get rid of loopholes which never happens because of Congress, no corporation pays the actual rate, not to mention the fact that hedge fund managers who make 50 million a year pay a lower percentage than me because supposedly it's investment income even though it's not their investment it's others. They're managing the money they should pay taxes at the personal rate.
The manufacturing Renaissance and bringing jobs back from overseas is pure nonsense. If you look at that unemployment chart over those 10 years it becomes pretty clear. If he started with a 10% unemployment and got it down to 4 then I'd be marching in the parade with you but clearly that's not what happened
https://www.google.com/amp/s/financ...y-record-on-manufacturing-jobs-163449515.html
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it was more than just selfish interest of the rich. Personal household income across the spectrum increased more under Trump than it had in years. Unemployment rates among all groups, but particularly among minorities fell to their lowest levels ever. Much of this was the impact of cutting corporate taxes significantly. The US had among the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Companies had started moving manufacturing back to the US because the penalty of doing business here was decreasing.

But he was no diplomat. I said to my wife often during his presidency, I would never invite the guy over to dinner. He’s not someone I’d want to be around. But I can’t deny the impact on our personal financial situation that was the result of his personal and corporate policies.

Remember that many of the folks who claimed to hate him and called him a racist also attended his wedding years prior as his friend. Watch his appearance on The View before he was a candidate. The hosts on that show are having fun with him and exchanging friendly banter. The whole narrative changed when the media and Hollywood decided to brand him. Then no matter what he said could and was used against him.

Compare this to Biden who was chased out of the primaries in the 1980’s for his history of plagiarism. Then in the 2008 primaries for some of his racist talk. This round it has all been swept under the rug and ignored because anything to defeat Trump.

As far as personal ethics and personal character, both 2016 and 2020 have been among the worst choices of individuals to hold that office that I can recall. And neither side even pretends to care one wit about fiscal responsibility anymore so we can’t vote in that anymore. Now they just promise to print larger checks to buy votes. I have no idea how that’s legal.

Anyway.
Besides everyone knows Trump wasn't involved in that tax cut. That was pure Mitch McConnell He's the one in there making the sausage. Trump just signed it, any Republican President would have signed it even one who didn't use third grade nicknames. Like maybe little Marco, dog face Carly, low energy Jeb, lyin Ted Cruz. Hell if the Republicans had Mr potato Head in there is President that same tax bill would have went through.
 
He was stumping pretty hard for something he wasn’t involved in. And he was on the campaign trail stumping for lower corporate tax rates in 2016. That’s how the government works. Presidents don’t write legislation. They just sign it. Congress writes it (or their staffers). But corporate taxes were a big part of his platform. Any saying otherwise is just a concerted effort to discredit him for anything because of his personal failings.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like the guy. But targeting corporate taxes was a part of his agenda.
 
He was stumping pretty hard for something he wasn’t involved in. And he was on the campaign trail stumping for lower corporate tax rates in 2016. That’s how the government works. Presidents don’t write legislation. They just sign it. Congress writes it (or their staffers). But corporate taxes were a big part of his platform. Any saying otherwise is just a concerted effort to discredit him for anything because of his personal failings.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like the guy. But targeting corporate taxes was a part of his agenda.
I guess you could say that but are you saying it wasn't part of other Republicans agenda? Personal failings you mean like rape? I only mentioned the childish nickname thing because I find it to be an international embarrassment. I mean I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of the other candidates he was up against in the primary but he stood up there and talked like a buffoon calling them schoolyard nicknames, saying he's the only one who can fix things like most dictators do. He ran more on repairing the infrastructure of the country it was even in his inauguration. He never even proposed an infrastructure bill. The money for that was given away to the wealthy. How much corporate taxes did Amazon pay? What percentage rate before that cut? Having a lower more competitive rate is great it would hopefully be simpler but instead we have all of these loopholes written by the companies themselves so they never pay that rate.
Besides saying he ran on it doesn't mean much because he said he was going to fix everything. He was going to drain the swamp, he was going to build the wall, he was going to take care of trade with China, he was going to fix Iran from making nukes, he was going to get little rocket Man in line, he was going to cure rainy days.... All of those other things didn't happen.
 
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Agreed. There is however not only social contract (in theory we live in a mutually cooperative society), there is something else possible. I loved this quote:
https://www.upworthy.com/amp/arnold-schwarzenegger-real-freedom-anti-maskers-2654649322
There is a big, gaping hole in the center of the belief that refusing to wear a mask or get vaccinated is a patriotic expression of the personal freedoms we enjoy as Americans.​
Sure, you're free to do as you wish, but the fastest way for people to invite tyranny into their lives is to forget that freedom is predicated on responsibility and accountability.​
Refusing to wear a mask in a place where COVID-19 is likely to spread puts yourself and others at risk. Refusing to get vaccinated only promotes the spread of the virus. The longer this pandemic goes on, the more likely it is that freedom-loving people will be subjected to punitive restrictions from lawmakers and businesses seeking to crack down on those who aren't being accountable.​
Freedom must be accompanied by accountability or society quickly becomes uncivilized and that's a fertile breeding ground for authoritarianism.​
On a totally side note one quote I did like from Arnold was in a speech he was giving on succeeding. I'm paraphrasing but it was about people who need to sleep 8 to 9 hours a night and that, in his opinion, perhaps didn't leave enough time awake to accomplish what you needed to. So his advice was to "sleep faster"......😂
 
it was more than just selfish interest of the rich. Personal household income across the spectrum increased more under Trump than it had in years. Unemployment rates among all groups, but particularly among minorities fell to their lowest levels ever. Much of this was the impact of cutting corporate taxes significantly. The US had among the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Companies had started moving manufacturing back to the US because the penalty of doing business here was decreasing.

But he was no diplomat. I said to my wife often during his presidency, I would never invite the guy over to dinner. He’s not someone I’d want to be around. But I can’t deny the impact on our personal financial situation that was the result of his personal and corporate policies.

Remember that many of the folks who claimed to hate him and called him a racist also attended his wedding years prior as his friend. Watch his appearance on The View before he was a candidate. The hosts on that show are having fun with him and exchanging friendly banter. The whole narrative changed when the media and Hollywood decided to brand him. Then no matter what he said could and was used against him.

Compare this to Biden who was chased out of the primaries in the 1980’s for his history of plagiarism. Then in the 2008 primaries for some of his racist talk. This round it has all been swept under the rug and ignored because anything to defeat Trump.

As far as personal ethics and personal character, both 2016 and 2020 have been among the worst choices of individuals to hold that office that I can recall. And neither side even pretends to care one wit about fiscal responsibility anymore so we can’t vote in that anymore. Now they just promise to print larger checks to buy votes. I have no idea how that’s legal.

Anyway.

There is no correlation to the corporate tax cuts and reduction of unemployment. Most corporations did NOT invest in people they invested in stock buy-backs. Trump road the fed polices that were put in place after the 2008 financial crises. If Trump were truly out for his voters, why was the middle class tax cut temporary and the corporate cut permanent? Biden was not my first choice but was a safe choice for normalcy.

The voters are part of the problem, they hear sound bites, social media and FoxNews/NewMax and pretend to be informed. I will not pretend that there is not some left leaning news shows, but people are too superficial in general and not engaged. The extremes of each party are engaged and the moderates are mostly on the sidelines.

Until there are term limits across the board and the money (lobbies) are out of politics it is stacked deck against us.

A major step toward fixing this would be;
- 2 term limit on Senators (12 years), 4 terms on Congress (8 years)
- neither can run for another office for at least 5 years after the higher of the numbers (12 years) was reached
- Once you leave office you can have no ties with a lobby group for at least 5 years.
- Severely limit lobbying contributions (no trips, cash, tickets, etc.) campaign contributions.
- Supreme Court should be limited to 18 years with each position opening at 2 year intervals. If a Justice dies or retires the replacement fills out the remaining portion of the 18 years and they is it.
- And lastly get rid of simple majority in both houses and force compromise with 2/3 votes needed to pass.

This would take work no-one currently in office would ever sign up for and once implemented would create some bumps for a few years, but I would be willing to be you would then have people in office that truly cared and wanted to do the right thing, versus the current members that are there as careers and keeping themselves in office and padded with kickbacks.


People like to quote "the founding fathers intent" which to me is BS. I am no scholar in American Constitutional history, but I doubt highly the current systems is what the envisioned. Also like all people they ware human and fallible and you can't take what made sense in 1776 and always extrapolate it to 200 year sin the future.
 
"Experimental serum"? So which vaccine that you received on a mandatory basis caused that issue? What year was it? Assuming that's what actually caused it things do move on technologically wise. That's what is called anecdotal. Even if what happened to you is true and a result from a vaccine that doesn't mean that vaccines in general are no good.

Vaccines "in general" are good, but I don't think they're good for me. That's what I've decided and I'm definitely not going to get vaccinated.
 
Vaccines "in general" are good, but I don't think they're good for me. That's what I've decided and I'm definitely not going to get vaccinated.

And there my friend is the problem, everyone not getting the vaccine is at best in your position, at worse an anti-vaxxer or they are not safe.

I have no illusion we will get to the vaccination levels we need to be at and with Delta now it is rather irrelevant other than to prevent the worst cases. I do hope maybe as the 1918 flu that this hopefully one day runs its course and mutates into something less harmful. I tend to doubt it and it will be here for many many years, if not forever.
 
Vaccines "in general" are good, but I don't think they're good for me. That's what I've decided and I'm definitely not going to get vaccinated.
Okay I understand, not saying I necessarily agree but it's your choice. I thought you were coming off as anti vaccine in generalvaccine in general
 
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its indeed an interesting subject. I thought about it a bit when I sought to find a name for myself (which indeed goes back 30 years now). I wanted something which I would not cringe at years from then. So I dug into my own history and professional studies to pull out that which I felt I could identify with, yet something which allows me to distance myself from identification and thus attack.

Some further examples (which I also knew about) which stem from the original.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellicle

Funny to say, from your avatar I just figured that "pellicle" was a name for the skin on the underside of a finger/thumb, kind of like the opposite of the "cuticle" on the top side with the nail ;)
 
My grandma believed the weather changed when they put a man on the moon. :) Maybe that was irrational, but she still made good choices in her life and she had the right to not be belittled for her opinion.

I LOVE this comment. At last global warming explained!!!! :)

(and I'm not having a dig at you or your grandma, just having some fun with that and how it might relate to some global warming non-believers etc)
 
I don't remember calling anyone racist. I understand some people are Republicans some are Democrats some are neither. I'm pretty moderate myself but no one with an IQ bumping anywhere near triple digits thinks Trump was the best president ever. Where's the logic? Is it because he repeatedly told his mush brained followers that he was " the bestest": while jabbering in the 3rd person like a mental patient?

Short answer - "Yes".

But I actually know a few well educated, highly intelligent people, who actually think Trump is/was great. Although from my perspective they take that attitude more out of trying to rationalize why they voted that moron in in the first place and refuse to objectively look at all his lies and illegal manipluations as anything of the kind because then they "look bad" themselves.

Most of the people I know that support Trump though are in another class entirely. Non-thinkers. Disbelievers in "science". Disgusted by anyone perceived to be smarter than them that has either money or power. Prejudiced beyond belief. Haters of all things not like themselves. And love that they see someone get great power who appears to be just like them in thumbing his nose at things that they do themselves, when in reality they are being led by the nose by a jerk who hates them just as much as they hate everyone else....I need to stop there...
 
I need to stop there...
Thanks for stopping. I thought this forum was a place to come to get/share info related to valvular heart disease and the like, not to read about ones political banter/rhetoric?
 
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Thanks for stopping. I thought this forum was a place to come to get/share info related to valvular heart disease and the like, not to read about ones political banter/rhetoric?
Well unfortunately the current virus running around the world in the vaccines became heavily politicized in the United States So if it comes a bit difficult to avoid it all together. I view it as what the hell it's free speech right? As long as nobody's being threatened or insulted by vile ways. I mean I read things all the time I don't agree with but I move on.
 
Your blind belief in science, statistics, the vaccine industry and the CDC is equivalent to what you claim is irrational blind belief of the unvaccinated.

Well, there you go again. You string together these straw men arguments and logical fallacies, it's hard to know where to begin. I'm not going to follow you down every logical fallacy rabbit hole.

Your assertion that that I have a blind belief in science, statistics, the vaccine industry and the CDC is nothing short of absurd. You don't understand what science is very well, or the scientific method. To approach things scientifically is to approach with skepticism, and this includes being skeptical of scientific studies, statistics, the vaccine industry and the CDC. It is to require verifiable evidence before beginning to accept something as possibly true. It is to require reproducibility of data obtained from trials. There is much to criticize and many areas to find fault. To approach things scientifically is to never accept things blindly.

Your flawed logical approach is to say that because fraud exists and can point to examples of fraud in scientific studies and such, therefor the consensus views of people who have a lifetime of training in these fields is on equal ground as some random bloke in his mom's basement making up misinformation about vaccines and the virus and posting it on the internet.

It is like saying, "Here are several examples of where the government was not honest, therefor the moon landing was faked because the government lies about everything." And to be clear, it was science that put men on the moon. It is also science that we have to thank for the cures to Polio, smallpox, measles, mumps...the list goes on and on. But, because social media has put the Dunning & Kruger effect on steroids, whereby some yahoo, with zero critical thinking ability, reads social media nonsense online and then believes he knows more than people who have spent their lifetimes studying epidemiology. Therefor, with such self proclaimed experts unwilling to participate, we may never get to the point of defeating Covid-19.

Many of the logical fallacies pertaining to vaccine hesitancy are addressed by Dr. Grande here:

 
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