Steely_D wrote:

Got it.
So where are the answers?
Back to fundamentals - giving everyone the opportunity of roof, bowl of soup, and for the future, a solid education?
To the latter, where is the balance between career orientation and real knowledge/enlightenment? 
Schools, those bastions of liberal communist whackjobs (tongue in cheek), appear still too focused on tests, and cramming students into career buckets of dr, lawyer, businessman, engineer. 

 black321 wrote:
Well, I start by calling out a culture that thinks it's OK to loot and laze. Maybe that's the rich too but I'm thinking of the poor, desperate to have something when they have nothing or eager to take something when they have no skills because they're not trying.

 Steely_D wrote:

good posts, but is your point it's all on the rich then?
certainly, there are strong arguments as to how much better life is today because of the rich, the capital they generate, the investments they make, jobs they create...
maybe, just maybe the problem is all the above? 
sure, there are the trouble makers at the extreme who flame the fires, but what about the apathetic masses in the middle?
so it's you, me, them...

Wow...someone must have spiked his OJ this morning.  Joe seems angry...and is aggressively calling Trump & Co. liars.  Repeatedly.  

 Steely_D wrote:

+1

 HarleyRider wrote:

Totally misses the point. That’s the result of bad thinking: uh oh, better shoot everyone!
The right way to approach this is cultural - why do people think it’s OK to loot, cheat, laze about? Who has moral authority any more to really convince people to behave like we’re in a society, instead of a winner-take-all old west? It certainly wasn’t Trump, who never - ever - looked out for the people in our society who weren’t given a fair shake (because helping someone that’s not you, well that’s socialism/communism my boy, and everyone knows the only thing good for people is capitalism).

Although, look back at revolutions. They happen because the rich over tax, over work the poor. Then the poor rise up.
Except now the rich have precedent to learn from. So instead of allowing people to figure, on their own, that the rich are the problem - they have spent an awful lot of time and some money to tell us that it’s 
1) the immigrants 
2) the colored 
3) the poor 
4) the scientists 
5) the non-Christians 
6) the hippies
7) the gays
8) the socialists
9) the media 
who are keeping them miserable, and not the rich at all. 
And how will you folks fix it for all of us? Second Amendment Remedies! And the rich will sit back and watch from one of their homes…

 rgio wrote:

Archie Bunker:

"I could end the skyjackings tomorrow. All you gotta do is arm all your passengers. If they know the passengers are armed, they know they have no ‘ superiority ' there. He ain't gonna dare to pull out no rod. And then your airlines, then they wouldn’t have to search the passengers on the ground no more, they just pass out the pistols at the beginning of the trip, and they pick ‘em up again at the end. Case closed.”

 HarleyRider wrote: Kurt ducks as the missiles launch.

 HarleyRider wrote:
So as gun sales have skyrocketed the past year along with crime, the best way to protect ourselves is by electing people who want to increase access and mobility for weapons?  

The "more guns, less crime" notion has proven so wrong the past few years that the author of the 2015 study the Right/NRA pointed to has changed his position.  The notion of "good guys with guns reduce crime" lacks any proof.

If you wanted to protect everyone, eliminating guns is the best way.  Look at any other country on the planet if you need proof.  The more guns...the more death.  

 HarleyRider wrote:
F*ck I hope as hell this scenario doesn’t play out. We need more politicians in place who are not afraid of the gun lobby… not beholden to it.

 HarleyRider wrote: 
If you think the bozo that led the previous regime did anything but feather his own fucking nest then you are more delusional than I thought you were.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
We are not living with a Joe Biden budget yet. The growth in 2021 is still a carryover from the Trump budget. Let not let Biden take credit for something that he has not engineered except the runaway inflation that his administration has created.

Not sure i buy everything this writer is selling, but interesting discussion:

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/12...

 westslope wrote:


Spot the diversion....

 Steely_D wrote:

Thought I saw him on the 12/20/21 Jimmy Fallon - Tonight Show episode.
WH Christmas decorations framed his video feed conversation between the 2.
Must have been a re-run or maybe my imagination        
Should have been sleeping.

Should have named his dog Brandon.

Joe Biden sets 50-year record for economic improvement in first year of presidency

I personally hope they dont pass another shotgun spending bill. 

Why Build Back Better is so unloved

Rick Newman·Senior ColumnistMon, December 13, 2021, 1:41 PM

Offer people free money, and they should become your biggest fans. Right?

Not really, it turns out. President Biden’s legislative strategy this year was to include some temporary new benefits in the big Covid relief bill Democrats passed in March, then count on them becoming so popular that voters would demand they be extended indefinitely. The Build Back Better legislation Democrats hope to pass by the end of year is Part II of that strategy, with extensions of a new child tax credit and health care subsidies among the bill’s major elements.

Voters aren’t all that enthused. Just 41% of respondents in a recent NPR/Marist poll said they support the BBB legislation, with 34% opposed and 25% unsure. Support for the bipartisan infrastructure bill Biden signed in November was 56%. That 15-point gap in support is the difference between legislation Americans want Congress to pass, and legislation they don’t.

This matters now because Democrats hoped the larger tax credit would generate a groundswell of voter support that would get the BBB bill over the finish line by the end of 2021. The March relief bill established the expanded benefit for six months, starting in July—so it ends this month. The latest version of the BBB bill would keep it going for another year. Instead of rallying around BBB, however, voters are wan—perhaps because the bill also includes green-energy investments, preschool subsidies, housing support, immigration changes, tax hikes and other things that make the whole package seem unwieldy.

Many Democrats have vilified Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has essentially blocked BBB so far, with objections to its large scope and cost, plus concern that it will worsen escalating inflation. But Manchin is closer to the majority view than most Democrats.