Covid, the "lockdowns" etc.

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Indeed, Pat, there's plenty of room for nuance in people. For myself, I don't like many Republican politicians, and I have disagreed with many of the things they have supported, and how they behave, and their attitudes.

I also support a Capitalist, free-market economy, and a smaller government, in general--though I also support some particular government regulation and supervision of various industries--some more than others--such as Big Tech and Pharmaceutical companies.

I have never considered you a Leftist, Pat. It's fine that you hold some different positions on various things.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

[rawma]

rawma is the type of person who gets his talking points from places like CNN and NY Times which frees him from the need to be consistant.  Therefore he is happy to complain about Trump wanting an aid package one second before the narrative changes to the opposite.

I have never complained about Trump wanting coronavirus relief; I have complained about his erratic demands in pursuing it, and I have complained about specific bad ideas he wanted in it, like a payroll tax holiday (which only benefits people who still have jobs).

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-calling-off-pandemic-stimulus-talks-election/story?id=73457680

[rawma]

I just pointed out that the $600 that everyone talks about has a huge hidden cost. And the 2017 bill isn't even vaguely equivalent.

What hidden cost? That it costs the government $600 (and some administrative costs) to send someone $600? You wanted to pretend that the recipients would get no benefit from it, as if they were simultaneously presented with a bill for that $600 check and other things in the same bill.

If you come across a green wall, and the green wall doesn't immediately denounce something you claim is a characteristic of white walls, say doing division in a certain way, do you tell the green wall it's really white?

While arguing with you does bear resemblance to arguing with a wall, the answer is no.

You're awfully defensive about being right-wing but unsurprisingly you offer no defense of your dishonest claims that the foreign aid amounts were part of the $900 billion coronavirus relief package.

No, you're just a moron who unsurprisingly offers no defense of your dishonest claim that there were two bills. (I notice you switched to calling it a "package" instead of a "bill".)

I provided multiple links rebutting your conflating of two things. And I called it the coronavirus relief package then; you're the one who keeps switching, talking about a $900 billion bill and then dragging in things that are not part of that $900 billion.

The foreign aid is part of the omnibus spending bill, not the coronavirus relief package.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/22/facebook-posts/facebook-posts-wrongly-say-covid-19-bill-includes-/

Congress appropriated funds for foreign aid and for American arts centers, and Americans are free to disagree that taxpayer money is allotted in this way. But it's wrong to suggest that such funding is in the COVID-19 relief bill.

And some more debunking: https://www.masslive.com/politics/2020/12/no-the-covid-stimulus-isnt-sending-85m-to-cambodia-complaints-over-alleged-omnibus-pork-muddle-stimulus-deal.html

I never backed off from that even in the slightest. There's no way a reasonable person could interpret anything I said as backing off from it, but you're not a reasonable person, are you?

You conceded that there were other sources of federal revenue, thus retreating from your initial attempt to score a point with the longtime right-wing talking point about any expenditure right-wingers don't like.

In fact, I'll reiterate it: I took the amount of the coronavirus part of the gigantic abusive spending package, and divided by the number of people who pay federal income tax. I did that because, while some of those taxpayers won't qualify because they make too much and there are some complications re SSNs, it still serves as a reasonable proxy for the number of people who will receive a $600 "stimulus". In other words, it's the total hidden cost of that $600 check or deposit.

As you agreed, there are other sources of federal revenue.

As I have explained, some of the costs incurred in difficult times may not actually be paid back in the lives of the taxpayers of that time; the economy grows to make the debt less relevant. I specifically gave the example of World War II debt.

But you're still talking about the whole cost of the coronavirus relief bill as a hidden cost of the $600 check; you might as well say the $1.4 trillion spending, or the rest of the entire federal budget, is the hidden cost of the $600 check. The rest of the $900 billion is spent on other things, which may or may not be things that you want, but are not the cost of the $600 check.

[It's really not hard; stop making right-wing arguments if you're not right-wing.

You really see the world that way, don't you? That people are divided into two groups, with comprehensive and mutually incompatible beliefs. So all you have to do is learn one thing that someone believes, and you know everything there is to know about them.

That's sad. You're like a child who was raised in a box, and has never seen the range of wonders in the wider world.

You make arguments straight out of Republican talking points memos and pretend that you're some sort of neutral arbiter of the truth. You laud Rand Paul and find fault with every Democrat. You denied the clear Biden election victory. But you want to be seen as not a right-winger? LOL.

I'm not neutral. Snowman said that, not me.

I find fault with every Republican, too. In fact, it was only about a month ago on this very board that I got dogpiled for attacking Rand Paul. So that's just ironic.

And I never said anything about who won the election.

We had a long exchange about whether Joe Biden could be called President elect; being President elect means he won the election but is not yet President. You claimed that media not using your definition were deliberately lying. That was pretty much the tipping point for realizing you are right-wing; that's not a normal reaction for a non-right-winger on a title you pretend doesn't really matter.

0/3 so far. And I don't care whether people think I'm right-wing or not, either. It's just a symptom of the deeper problem: Your inability to listen to what I say. You'll notice we haven't talked about anything interesting or substantive, and that's because you keep replying as if I said things I never said, I correct you, you get indignant and double down, and it repeats ad nauseum.

I keep relying on things you said, which you keep claiming meant something else, or running away from completely.

You said that foreign aid was in the $900 billion coronavirus relief ("Trumpbux Mark 2.0"). Maybe you meant passed in the same bill, but then you should have quoted the higher remaining price and maybe recognized that the whole bill was not about "helping those were more negatively affected" [sic].

In fact, I was always rather amused that people on the left usually labeled me as right wing, while people on the right usually labeled me as left wing. That's a just how people work. When you talk with another person, disagreements take on a greater import than areas of concordance. So when someone starts with a left/right axis bias, they're likely to label someone who doesn't fall on that axis as being on the opposite end. Humans are quick to label people as Other.

But there was a time when I could simply explain that I didn't fit neatly in that box, and people would accept that. That was fun, because it allowed us to move on with the discussion, and talk about real differences and areas of agreement, instead of being stuck at the gate, as it were. The loss of that is the worst part of today's political zeitgest, because saying "no that's not what I believe" in an endless, recursive cycle is pretty damn dull.

To the extent that there's a left-to-right political spectrum, everyone gets projected onto it, like it or not. You are clearly to the right. Many of the posters here have a completely distorted view of where the center is; don't use that to claim you aren't right-wing.

[Snowman0147]

Pat I said I thought you were neutral.  I didn't state you were neutral.  Give me some credibility that I don't shove my foot in my mouth.

Though in honesty why haven't put Rawma on ignore?  What are you exactly getting out of him?  From my view point your just rewarding him with unwarranted attention that he so desperately seeks.  Seriously stop feeding this disingenuous troll.

[rawma]

Rawma isn't someone who just repeats talking points, there's some thought under there. It's just it's buried under the Culture War mentality, the idea that there's this grand fight between two diametrically opposed sides. This does tend to blind people to the faults of their own side, while turning the enemy as a cartoonish caricature, but even more consequential is the belief that every argument must be won at any cost, even if they have to resort to dirty tactics. Plenty of people on both sides display it, though it is more common among the left because they're the driving force in the Culture War, while the right is more reactive.

I think the idea that there are two diametrically opposed sides is more characteristic of the right wing; the belief that left-wing forces are trying to destroy western civilization (and that RPGs are a significant battlefield for this) is an underlying premise of so much of the posting on this entire site. The two-party system of the United States is an objective manifestation of a duality, but there was a time when the two parties worked together on at least some issues and could compromise on others. The Republican party has become ever more radical throughout my lifetime; MItch McConnell's entire agenda when a Democrat is President is to obstruct everything in the hopes of making that President unpopular. And in the post-election phase, too many Republicans have abandoned any regard for the Constitution or the country to embrace dishonest fantasies about the election outcome, such as the impossibility that Trump could lose. The result is that my politics, without moving much from where they were when I first voted, now strike you as being some sort of Manichean heresy.

[Pat]

Pat I said I thought you were neutral.  I didn't state you were neutral.  Give me some credibility that I don't shove my foot in my mouth.

Though in honesty why haven't put Rawma on ignore?  What are you exactly getting out of him?  From my view point your just rewarding him with unwarranted attention that he so desperately seeks.  Seriously stop feeding this disingenuous troll.

Noted. I was really just pointing out that among the things I never said was one with a clear source. I was paying more attention to the phrase itself than the contexts in which it was used.

I've never used an ignore list, I think they're contrary to the idea of free discussions. I think engaging people shows a basic level of respect. I also think discussing the mechanisms of how we interact, which is a lot of what this has devolved into, is worthwhile. I'm also fairly patient.

[oggsmash]

Rawma isn't someone who just repeats talking points, there's some thought under there. It's just it's buried under the Culture War mentality, the idea that there's this grand fight between two diametrically opposed sides. This does tend to blind people to the faults of their own side, while turning the enemy as a cartoonish caricature, but even more consequential is the belief that every argument must be won at any cost, even if they have to resort to dirty tactics. Plenty of people on both sides display it, though it is more common among the left because they're the driving force in the Culture War, while the right is more reactive.

I think the idea that there are two diametrically opposed sides is more characteristic of the right wing; the belief that left-wing forces are trying to destroy western civilization (and that RPGs are a significant battlefield for this) is an underlying premise of so much of the posting on this entire site. The two-party system of the United States is an objective manifestation of a duality, but there was a time when the two parties worked together on at least some issues and could compromise on others. The Republican party has become ever more radical throughout my lifetime; MItch McConnell's entire agenda when a Democrat is President is to obstruct everything in the hopes of making that President unpopular. And in the post-election phase, too many Republicans have abandoned any regard for the Constitution or the country to embrace dishonest fantasies about the election outcome, such as the impossibility that Trump could lose. The result is that my politics, without moving much from where they were when I first voted, now strike you as being some sort of Manichean heresy.

  The right wing became more radical?  You mean not moving left fast enough I think.  Unless you are 21, you are suffering from serious bias if your point of view republicans resisting a dude who in his own book made sure to mention every friend and mentor he ever had was a communist (as well as his father, grandfather, and step father) is somehow a radical step to the right.  LOL.  Not sure if serious.

[Pat]

Rawma isn't someone who just repeats talking points, there's some thought under there. It's just it's buried under the Culture War mentality, the idea that there's this grand fight between two diametrically opposed sides. This does tend to blind people to the faults of their own side, while turning the enemy as a cartoonish caricature, but even more consequential is the belief that every argument must be won at any cost, even if they have to resort to dirty tactics. Plenty of people on both sides display it, though it is more common among the left because they're the driving force in the Culture War, while the right is more reactive.

I think the idea that there are two diametrically opposed sides is more characteristic of the right wing; the belief that left-wing forces are trying to destroy western civilization (and that RPGs are a significant battlefield for this) is an underlying premise of so much of the posting on this entire site. The two-party system of the United States is an objective manifestation of a duality, but there was a time when the two parties worked together on at least some issues and could compromise on others. The Republican party has become ever more radical throughout my lifetime; MItch McConnell's entire agenda when a Democrat is President is to obstruct everything in the hopes of making that President unpopular. And in the post-election phase, too many Republicans have abandoned any regard for the Constitution or the country to embrace dishonest fantasies about the election outcome, such as the impossibility that Trump could lose. The result is that my politics, without moving much from where they were when I first voted, now strike you as being some sort of Manichean heresy.

I suspect the right is more prone to Us vs. Them thinking, because of what we know about the psychological underpinnings that incline people toward being liberal or conservative. But they're also more inclined to be reactive, and the left has clearly been driving the discussion, while frequently arguing that the things they support are obvious and good, with the implication that anyone who disagrees doesn't just have different values, but lacks any morals at all.

i think the two party system isn't so much a manifestation of duality, as a proximate cause. Tribalism is a self-reinforcing loop. When groups segregate on ideology, they don't default to the average beliefs of the members in each group. Instead, they shift further and further to the extremes. This has happened to both sides; the Blue Dog Democrats are also effectively dead, and studies show the moderate middle has largely vanished and the average of both parties have diverged. In the political realm, there are some concrete reasons why this happened, including the scandal that led Congresscritters to fly home every weekend, leading to fewer chances to build social bonds with members of the other party; rules changes in Congress that enforced party loyalty under threat of funding or plum committee posts, starting with Gingrich's Contract with America but accelerating since; and external forces like clickbait journalism and the rise of social media that have fragmented information sources and allowed people to self-select into homogeneous groups.

Regarding McConnell, Obama and Pelosi were just as obstructionist, if not more so. The term itself has become a political weapon, thrown by people using the same tactics as the ones they decry. And while 2020 has led to the right flipping out over real or perceived perfidy on the left, that follows 4 years of the left flipping out over Trump, even when he did the exact same thing as his predecessor, not to mention the riots of more recent months. The only people who think it's one-sided are partisans.

[Pat]

I just pointed out that the $600 that everyone talks about has a huge hidden cost. And the 2017 bill isn't even vaguely equivalent.

What hidden cost?

The rest of the bill. You know this, it's what we've been talking about. This is deliberate obfuscation on your part.

If you come across a green wall, and the green wall doesn't immediately denounce something you claim is a characteristic of white walls, say doing division in a certain way, do you tell the green wall it's really white?

While arguing with you does bear resemblance to arguing with a wall, the answer is no.

Mirror, meet wall.

Congress appropriated funds for foreign aid and for American arts centers, and Americans are free to disagree that taxpayer money is allotted in this way. But it's wrong to suggest that such funding is in the COVID-19 relief bill.

And some more debunking: https://www.masslive.com/politics/2020/12/no-the-covid-stimulus-isnt-sending-85m-to-cambodia-complaints-over-alleged-omnibus-pork-muddle-stimulus-deal.html

You can't debunk a fact. All you can do is cite people who make casual, uninformed statements.

It's one bill. See for yourself:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/133
(Don't let the name fool you, H.R. 133 is the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. The amendments amend nearly everything, even the name. It's how this shit works.)

You conceded that there were other sources of federal revenue, thus retreating from your initial attempt to score a point with the longtime right-wing talking point about any expenditure right-wingers don't like.

"Concession" involves giving ground. I'm standing exactly where I've always stood. You can't simply proclaim someone has retreated,

But you're still talking about the whole cost of the coronavirus relief bill as a hidden cost of the $600 check; you might as well say the $1.4 trillion spending, or the rest of the entire federal budget, is the hidden cost of the $600 check.

That's exactly what I'm saying. You're just playing word games trying to claim otherwise.

We had a long exchange about whether Joe Biden could be called President elect; being President elect means he won the election but is not yet President. You claimed that media not using your definition were deliberately lying. That was pretty much the tipping point for realizing you are right-wing; that's not a normal reaction for a non-right-winger on a title you pretend doesn't really matter.

I knew exactly what you were referring to, but believing we should use the correct term is not equivalent to saying who won or didn't win an election.

And I hope you realize you just invalidated your own argument. The election isn't won until the electors vote, and they hadn't at that point. So even by your definition, Biden wasn't president-elect.

I keep relying on things you said, which you keep claiming meant something else, or running away from completely.

No, you keep reading things into what I said that aren't there.

To the extent that there's a left-to-right political spectrum, everyone gets projected onto it, like it or not. You are clearly to the right. Many of the posters here have a completely distorted view of where the center is; don't use that to claim you aren't right-wing.

Is Neptune closer to Milwaukee or Duluth? Are sponges more closely related to cows or wolves?

Trying to jam everyone on a simplistic spectrum leads to nonsense results.

[rawma]

I think the idea that there are two diametrically opposed sides is more characteristic of the right wing; the belief that left-wing forces are trying to destroy western civilization (and that RPGs are a significant battlefield for this) is an underlying premise of so much of the posting on this entire site. The two-party system of the United States is an objective manifestation of a duality, but there was a time when the two parties worked together on at least some issues and could compromise on others. The Republican party has become ever more radical throughout my lifetime; MItch McConnell's entire agenda when a Democrat is President is to obstruct everything in the hopes of making that President unpopular. And in the post-election phase, too many Republicans have abandoned any regard for the Constitution or the country to embrace dishonest fantasies about the election outcome, such as the impossibility that Trump could lose. The result is that my politics, without moving much from where they were when I first voted, now strike you as being some sort of Manichean heresy.

  The right wing became more radical?  You mean not moving left fast enough I think.  Unless you are 21, you are suffering from serious bias if your point of view republicans resisting a dude who in his own book made sure to mention every friend and mentor he ever had was a communist (as well as his father, grandfather, and step father) is somehow a radical step to the right.  LOL.  Not sure if serious.

I never expected a decade ago that I would be on the same side as Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, George Will and a host of others, yet here we are. But the changes were going on for decades before Trump; the Republicans embraced more and more their coalition of Southern Strategy, Moral Majority and the rich. Moderate Northern Republicans are a distant memory; their Congressional delegation has gone from Contract with America to Tea Party to Qanon. They've gone from wedge issues to gerrymandering to voter suppression to challenging the honesty of elections run by other Republicans. Republicans in Congress told Richard Nixon to give it up; now they want Trump to steal the election.

I expect Republicans to resist Democrats, but they do so with extreme dishonesty: dogwhistles, birthers, trashing John Kerry's war service, claiming Joe Biden is senile (but nevertheless a wily debater!), Willie Horton, deliberate alteration or misrepresentation of quotes and images. Can you really find an equivalent of "ratfucker" Roger Stone or Karl Rove on the left? Not the fever swamp fantasies about Clintons killing anyone, or undetectable election theft in 2020, but real political operatives reveling in the dirty tricks they've done on behalf of Democrats? Anyone you name is not going to have the same prominence.

[rawma]

I just pointed out that the $600 that everyone talks about has a huge hidden cost. And the 2017 bill isn't even vaguely equivalent.

What hidden cost?

The rest of the bill. You know this, it's what we've been talking about. This is deliberate obfuscation on your part.

Back at you; that's not a cost of the $600 check, that's the cost of the other things that the bill also does. As I said in the part that you removed. And of course you were wrong about the foreign aid being part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief.

Congress appropriated funds for foreign aid and for American arts centers, and Americans are free to disagree that taxpayer money is allotted in this way. But it's wrong to suggest that such funding is in the COVID-19 relief bill.

And some more debunking: https://www.masslive.com/politics/2020/12/no-the-covid-stimulus-isnt-sending-85m-to-cambodia-complaints-over-alleged-omnibus-pork-muddle-stimulus-deal.html

You can't debunk a fact. All you can do is cite people who make casual, uninformed statements.

It's one bill. See for yourself:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/133
(Don't let the name fool you, H.R. 133 is the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. The amendments amend nearly everything, even the name. It's how this shit works.)

I've rebutted this with links; rebutted your claim that I switched to saying package instead of bill when I said that at the very beginning, and I do not deny that the two bills were passed together and that Trump will sign or veto them together. That doesn't make them the same thing, any more than the cost of sending $600 checks includes the cost of something else. And you admitted this from the start when you talked about a $900 billion cost versus the entire cost of the combined bill. And you were wrong when you said that the foreign aid was part of the $900 billion coronavirus relief.

You conceded that there were other sources of federal revenue, thus retreating from your initial attempt to score a point with the longtime right-wing talking point about any expenditure right-wingers don't like.

"Concession" involves giving ground. I'm standing exactly where I've always stood. You can't simply proclaim someone has retreated,

Your first post attributed the entire cost to "taxpayers"; from the number cited, you obviously meant payers of federal income tax. And then you said "And of course people who don't pay income tax pay other taxes". That's a concession; let's include them in the denominator. That you do not understand the meaning of the words you write is not any fault of mine; you misrepresenting them later is definitely your fault. And of course you were wrong about the foreign aid being part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief; are you still standing with that? Or just pretending you said something else?

But you're still talking about the whole cost of the coronavirus relief bill as a hidden cost of the $600 check; you might as well say the $1.4 trillion spending, or the rest of the entire federal budget, is the hidden cost of the $600 check.

That's exactly what I'm saying. You're just playing word games trying to claim otherwise.

What, we couldn't have $600 checks without the other $2+ trillion dollars spent on unrelated matters? If you go to a store and buy a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread, the price of the eggs and the loaf of bread is not a "hidden cost" of the milk.

I knew exactly what you were referring to, but believing we should use the correct term is not equivalent to saying who won or didn't win an election.

And I hope you realize you just invalidated your own argument. The election isn't won until the electors vote, and they hadn't at that point. So even by your definition, Biden wasn't president-elect.

Oh, caring about words so passionately that you suspect the results of this election but don't care about how the words are defined in federal law. Care more about your nonsensical hidden costs that are actually paying for something else. Or care about how you were wrong about the foreign aid being part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief.

The election is won in the voting on election day. No consequential change has ever happened after election day (in 2000, Florida might have changed but didn't). By your argument, every President elect has been prematurely mislabeled, and according to you, it is deliberate lying by the media. That's just insane garbage from someone who incorrectly stated that the foreign aid was part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief.

I keep relying on things you said, which you keep claiming meant something else, or running away from completely.

No, you keep reading things into what I said that aren't there.

Nope. You said that the the foreign aid was part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief, and you were wrong and have dishonestly continued to pretend you were not.

To the extent that there's a left-to-right political spectrum, everyone gets projected onto it, like it or not. You are clearly to the right. Many of the posters here have a completely distorted view of where the center is; don't use that to claim you aren't right-wing.

Is Neptune closer to Milwaukee or Duluth? Are sponges more closely related to cows or wolves?

Trying to jam everyone on a simplistic spectrum leads to nonsense results.

I don't have to judge who is more or less right-wing or left-wing by infinitesimal amounts; only where they sit relative to the center. I expect you believe that the center sits right under you, just as you believe your definitions and opinions are more authoritative than anything I cite. You are wrong, just like you were wrong on the foreign aid being part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief.

[Pat]

I've rebutted this with links; rebutted your claim that I switched to saying package instead of bill when I said that at the very beginning, and I do not deny that the two bills were passed together and that Trump will sign or veto them together. That doesn't make them the same thing, any more than the cost of sending $600 checks includes the cost of something else. And you admitted this from the start when you talked about a $900 billion cost versus the entire cost of the combined bill.

It's not two bills passed together, it's just one bill. And that does make them the same bill. It needs just one signature, not two. And my source is the source used by all your sources, which makes it more authoritative. Consider all your rebuttals debutted.

Not to mention this is Civics 101. They used to teach this in Saturday morning commercials.

Back at you; that's not a cost of the $600 check, that's the cost of the other things that the bill also does. As I said in the part that you removed.

The proposed bill still costs $2.3 trillion, and the American taxpayers can't just choose to pay for the $600 and skip the rest. That's the point I made, which you're pretending to miss.

And of course you were wrong about the foreign aid being part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief.

And you were wrong when you said that the foreign aid was part of the $900 billion coronavirus relief.

And of course you were wrong about the foreign aid being part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief; are you still standing with that? Or just pretending you said something else?

You are wrong, just like you were wrong on the foreign aid being part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief.

Nope. You said that the the foreign aid was part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief, and you were wrong and have dishonestly continued to pretend you were not.

That's just insane garbage from someone who incorrectly stated that the foreign aid was part of the $900 billion for coronavirus relief.

This is hilarious.

Completely unrelated, but have you accepted the fact that H.R. 133 is a single bill as your Lord and Savior?

Your first post attributed the entire cost to "taxpayers"; from the number cited, you obviously meant payers of federal income tax. And then you said "And of course people who don't pay income tax pay other taxes". That's a concession; let's include them in the denominator. That you do not understand the meaning of the words you write is not any fault of mine; you misrepresenting them later is definitely your fault.

According to the US Debt Clock, the debt per taxpayers is currently $220,130. Does that mean a $220,130 bill is being sent to each taxpayer?

Of course not. People understand it's an illustration to make it easier to grasp.

You're pretending to not understand the concept in an attempt to obfuscate the issue.

What, we couldn't have $600 checks without the other $2+ trillion dollars spent on unrelated matters? If you go to a store and buy a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread, the price of the eggs and the loaf of bread is not a "hidden cost" of the milk.

Is an ad deceptive if it advertises something for one price, and when you show up at the store they'll only sell it to you at that price if you buy a bunch of shit you don't want?

The point again. Which you're deliberately missing.

I knew exactly what you were referring to, but believing we should use the correct term is not equivalent to saying who won or didn't win an election.

And I hope you realize you just invalidated your own argument. The election isn't won until the electors vote, and they hadn't at that point. So even by your definition, Biden wasn't president-elect.

Oh, caring about words so passionately that you suspect the results of this election but don't care about how the words are defined in federal law. Care more about your nonsensical hidden costs that are actually paying for something else.

The election is won in the voting on election day. No consequential change has ever happened after election day (in 2000, Florida might have changed but didn't). By your argument, every President elect has been prematurely mislabeled, and according to you, it is deliberate lying by the media.

You just defeated your own argument again. If it's about how the phrase is defined in federal law, then the president-elect isn't determined until the GSA administrator certifies them. You were the one who brought this up, in the other discussion.

But that's only one of several possible standards, because the law about starting the transition only defines the term in a narrow context, and the Constitution is silent on the matter. So there's some ambiguity, though there's no ambiguity when it comes to the Associated Press. They have nothing to do with the process.

It also doesn't strengthen your argument when you have to lie about what I said. In the previous conversation, I specifically said that the media were mistaken, not deliberately lying, during previous elections, and explained why.

To the extent that there's a left-to-right political spectrum, everyone gets projected onto it, like it or not. You are clearly to the right. Many of the posters here have a completely distorted view of where the center is; don't use that to claim you aren't right-wing.

Is Neptune closer to Milwaukee or Duluth? Are sponges more closely related to cows or wolves?

Trying to jam everyone on a simplistic spectrum leads to nonsense results.

I don't have to judge who is more or less right-wing or left-wing by infinitesimal amounts; only where they sit relative to the center. I expect you believe that the center sits right under you, just as you believe your definitions and opinions are more authoritative than anything I cite.

Neptune isn't somewhere between Milwaukee and Duluth, Rawma. If I believed I was a centrist, I would have analogized myself to Eu Claire.

[Garry G]

New Zealand has pretty good socialised healthcare, I might have lost my sons and wife without it, but without a government that locked the country down and protected it there could have been a lot of deaths. Here in the UK we have pretty good socialised healthcare that due to cuts is normally barely able to get through winter. The US does not have decent healthcare for all.

We actually have decent healthcare for all. You've just heard too much media whining.

We'd have sci-fi level amazing healthcare for all if we let other nations fend for themselves. If NZ had to shoulder the burden of its own defense, then we'll see what kind of healthcare you'd get.

Considering the uselessness of America's "allies" and all the asshole noise we have to hear from their citizens, I'd FAR rather we keep the money at home and let you people get a crash course in Chinese.

I've heard it's a bit expensive likesay if you don't have the insurance. If you say it's all good I'm convinced though.

[consolcwby]

Ah! I think I see why Trump wants to kill this bill:
Sec. 1003. Rescissions.
Rescinds the unobligated amounts appropriated under section 4027 of the CARES Act that were deposited in
the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) for direct loans by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and
emergency lending programs and facilities established by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System (Federal Reserve or Fed). There is an immediate rescission of $429 billion from unobligated balances,
and a subsequent rescission on January 9, 2021 of any remaining unobligated balances. Certain administrative
expenses are exempted from the recessions.
Sec. 1004. Emergency Relief and Taxpayer Protections.
Clarifies that proceeds from investments should be deposited as described in section 4003(e) of the CARES
Act.
Sec. 1005. Termination of Authority.
Sets December 31, 2020 as the date for termination of the Federal Reserve's authority to make new loans, asset
purchases, or modifications through the existing CARES Act facilities. As the ESF funds provided through the
CARES Act are rescinded, this section clarifies the Secretary of the Treasury retains authority to use other ESF
funds to backstop future Federal Reserve emergency lending programs and facilities under section 13(3) of the
Federal Reserve Act. This section also clarifies that while those other ESF funds may not be used to establish
Federal Reserve emergency lending programs and facilities that are the "same as" (i.e. identical to) current
Federal Reserve programs and facilities that received CARES Act funding support (except the Term AssetBacked Securities Loan Facility, or TALF), it permits substantially similar Federal Reserve emergency lending
programs and facilities, including those designed to support small businesses and non-profit organizations, as
well as state, territory, and local governments, to be established with ESF funds in the future.
Sec. 1006. Rule of Construction.
Clarifies that the Federal Reserve fully retains the authority it had prior to the enactment of the CARES Act to
establish programs and facilities under section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act.

[rawma]

It's not two bills passed together, it's just one bill. And that does make them the same bill. It needs just one signature, not two. And my source is the source used by all your sources, which makes it more authoritative. Consider all your rebuttals debutted.

Not to mention this is Civics 101. They used to teach this in Saturday morning commercials.

You presented the $900 billion for coronavirus relief as a separate thing, and then incorrectly stated that the $900 billion included foreign aid that was part of the $1.4 trillion dollars. That the two pieces of legislation were merged is not relevant. I have pointed out your mistake repeatedly and how you have misrepresented my comments repeatedly, and you continue to do so. Per Pat, this now proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are deliberately lying.

It's an easy mistake, given the weight of tradition, so it's no surprise people were initially confused, and it took a while to work out the details. But at this point, the news media have had plenty of time to look it over, correct themselves, and put a qualifier in front President-elect. Since they've chosen not to, that means they're deliberately lying.

Let's see:
It's an easy mistake, given the weight of tradition, so it's no surprise people were initially confused, and it took a while to work out the details. But at this point, Pat has had plenty of time to look it over, correct themselves, and admit their error and deception. Since they've chosen not to, that means they're deliberately lying.

Yes, that's about right.

If you'll deliberately lie about something like that, nobody can trust your own characterization of your political stance; the appropriate rule is to trust what people reveal through their actions over what they claim about themselves. And you show right-wing a lot. I don't blame you from wanting to dissociate yourself from the idiot right-wingers on this site; I don't blame you for fantasizing that your politics are more respectable than that of the political allies you despise even when you agree with them, but I do blame you for lying about me.

Neptune isn't somewhere between Milwaukee and Duluth, Rawma. If I believed I was a centrist, I would have analogized myself to Eu Claire.

Neptune? No, you are clearly very, very deep in Uranus.