JCauto

Refer to the graph in the link. It's the original data from the source of the information.

Last chance as I won't respond to you any longer since you continue to avoid answering the question. You said, first and foremost to start this discussion, that debt, specifically the debt bomb was the big problem with the US economy. I responded by showing the US government debt over the course of the 20th Century and it proves that debt rises significantly during certain administrations, however this only occurs during Republican administrations. I asked you in response "Why does the US debt always increase more during Republican administrations?" as is shown by the data. You have failed to answer this question. So, answer the question and wipe the smug smile off of my face.

Speaking of evasion, you have once again failed to address any of my claims (all of which you know to be true) and have yet to provide any rebuttal to my point - Republicans are primarily responsible for the debt and it has grown fastest under their administrations as is plainly seen in the data I presented. As to this minor quibble, every administration has to deal with whatever occurs worldwide under their watch. Obama had to deal with the 2008 financial crisis. Biden had to deal with Russian and Iranian geopolitical aggression. It's part of the job. It's not just under DJT that the debt increases substantially more, it's under every Republican administration as I pointed out. What's the common feature of those administrations? Disproportionate and regressive tax cuts that benefit the wealthy primarily and significantly reduce revenues over the long term. Started with Ronald Reagan in 1980 as I noted. What's your response?

I agree with you that they have a spending problem, but you conveniently have avoided the data I presented about the debt and its growth. Trump added $8 Trillion dollars to the debt with his policies including his ridiculously regressive tax cuts that of course expired for the middle class but remain permanent for the wealthy. The Republicans have consistently opposed funding for the IRS so that they can pursue the rich tax cheats who owe billions of dollars to the government. Increased enforcement finally pushed through by the Biden administration against GOP opposition has already added over a billion to the coffers with much more to come. Hopefully they'll pursue those who cheated massively on the COVID-19 relief funds which were disproportionately stolen by business people scamming the system. I presented a compelling case that the national debt increases more under Republican rather than Democratic presidencies. Why have you offered no rebuttal other than, bizarrely, to blame the Democrats?

You claimed that inflation under the Biden Presidency was 20.7%. What is your source?

You really are dense. Look at the name of the co-authors. One of them is "Mike Pompeo". Do you recall that name? He was the former Director of the CIA and Secretary of State for none other than...DJT! He will soon enough be writing his Op-Eds from his prison cell.

There's not much value to deep analysis of Trump's individual words in my opinion. He deliberately floats all sorts of things since this is the objective, to question the truth about anything and everything, to muddy the waters and make it so that people give up trying to separate it from fiction. Then, ultimately, get them to uncritically accept whatever he says as being the truth. By speaking of two opposites at two different times and insisting on acceptance of contradiction, he removes the individuals' agency to decide what's right or wrong, or true or false, and replaces it with there only being one arbiter of truth - whatever he says at that time. He deliberately humiliates anyone close to him so that they learn that they better keep in line and "pour encourager les autres". This is why large numbers of AN posters and MAGA followers are so willing to embrace things that are so obviously and patently untrue. They simply have to, because once one starts questioning the whole house of cards collapses. No dissension is therefore allowed and anyone who realizes it's a sham and leaves is ruthlessly hounded and hunted by the remaining insiders. See "Cheney, Liz". As observed, very few on the Right have any principles that enable them to maintain a spine and stand up for themselves. Witness Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz among others who Trump has viciously insulted but who continue to kowtow because they realize they can't oppose him and maintain their political jobs. They are correct of course, at the moment pretty much any principled Conservative has to survive numerous primary challenges, can't access funding and is ruthlessly targeted by the MAGA mob. Luckily this "purity" test has only one measure, that being loyalty to DJT, hence so many unelected charlatans being fielded to run in the general election. When it was DJT against old man Biden, it was solely a contest of those who wanted Trump against those who hated him. Now it's the same but with a lot of new voters who were going to sit this one out and numerous independents and never-Trumpers on the GOP side who will now be inspired to vote for a better and younger candidate. That's the recipe for a landslide.

Absolutely! As I predicted, Trump is running away from the debate as if it were a healthy entree or the unvarnished truth. We need more appearances by JD Vance to outline his vision for America and women's place in it. Who knew he was so flexible that he had the ability to insert both of his feet into his mouth simultaneously? The man is a treasure, and the only good thing I think that Don Jr. has ever done is recommend him to the Old Man to be VP. Thanks Don Jr! And we surely need more video of the two candidates and their competing visions, appearances and elocution. This is going to be a landslide, and the opposite direction of what it would have been had Biden not stepped down. Was it planned or did it somehow just all come together? I suspect the latter rather than the former, since I haven't really seen the Democrats demonstrate much of an ability to take initiative and make bold moves in politics in the last decade. That's why there are so many fragile old folks in charge from Biden to Schumer to Pelosi, and how they managed to keep losing elections they should have won by continuously ignoring the post-Boomer generations who are their main voting base. Now that it's been forced upon them, those generations are going to remake America (finally!) into the social democracy that it's destined to become. I salute the good work they did to keep the flame alive and fend off the Fascists, but their job is done and it's time for them to fade into the background and play peekaboo with their grandkids.

Of course the vast majority of people have other priorities in life; it's the rare ones I'm taking precautionary measures against. These are troubled times with the rise of fascism, you never know if the right side (ironically in this case, the Centre and the Left) will prevail ultimately. Fortunately the more recent events have made this significantly less likely to happen.

This is why I had to jump on that - they avoid facts like they're a virus! This is why practically every response to my posts have no specificity and no direct answers to either the factual content or the rebuttals I write to their original posts. Once the facts are pointed out that completely debunk their points, they simply add a new point that has no relationship to the previous one and the cycle continues. But I'm here for it and will always be. The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly but very fine. Watching the fascist train derail in slow motion is a sight to behold!

Oh finally! Someone on the Right says something that actually points to an evidentiary position. You don't like debt or the "debt bomb" referring to the total government debt. Shall we examine where that came from then? Fortunately, very accurate information is available such as in this link: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/ Let's examine those trends: 1980 to 1993 there's the first big spike in the debt - that would be the period of Ronald Reagan and Bush I. 1993 to 2000 the debt is tamed briefly - that would be the presidency of Bill Clinton. 2001 to 2008 the economy crashes under the stewardship of Bush II as exemplified by the colossal security failure that led to the twin towers crashing down and the world financial crisis of 2008 2009 to 2016 the economy recovers under the stewardship of Obama 2017 to 2020 the debt spikes sharply from the irresponsible tax cuts for the Rich under Trump 2021 to 2024 the debt levels off as responsible governance from the Biden administration again tames the inflation and damage to the economy caused by the irresponsible tax cuts Basically the debt spikes every single time a Republican takes over the White House. This is due to their attachment to tax cuts for their rich benefactors. While I have taken delight in showing how the GOP cannot attract any significant artists, authors or other talented people to their side, there is ONE group whom they've been remarkably effective in attracting - that would be Billionaires. They support the Republicans far more than Democrats. Why is that? Well, they own them for one, that is how Warren Buffett now pays less in taxes than his secretary and the people who pick up the garbage from his modest house in Omaha, Nebraska. That's why HE and other responsible billionaires are calling for tax INCREASES on the exorbitantly wealthy. Why don't the others take their billions and solve world hunger or do other good things rather than try to take over democracy through manipulation of the political systems and courts?

Okay, link please. You need to substantiate your wild claims with evidence. Thanks!

So your answer to my question was "No, actually, I haven't seen anyone on the Left treating their political leaders like Messiahs". Thanks for participating!

I'll admit I don't carry the gravitas of Scott Baio but then again, who does? Perhaps that's why he's not done anything since "Joanie Loves Chachi" or whatever that short-lived "Happy Days" spinoff was called. He's too tired from lifting all the water on the Right for all these years. No, pardner, I wasn't presenting myself as the lantern to light the way for y'all. Just suggesting that when you observe that nobody of any talent, originality or style is endorsing your team, you might want to question why that is.

Oh I agree that I'm not that important, it's more a matter of posting on a forum based in a country where leaving fully justified reviews of businesses can result in being jailed for defamation.

Actually Canada has taken in record numbers of immigrants during Trudeau's time as PM. He probably overshot the mark in terms of numbers, and this has put a lot of pressure on housing and the job market. That's how it goes sometimes, but I think the policy was absolutely correct, they just got a lot more interest than they anticipated and reacted too slowly. We also take our global responsibilities seriously so took in a lot of refugees from the various conflicts (Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, etc.). We needed new blood in the workforce and our population is not growing enough to fill that gap, especially given how young people are increasingly less interested in children given the problems they're likely to face. We've welcomed over 430,000 new citizens in 2022 and 2023 alone. It's the Christian thing to do. Your attempt to "big brother" me is amusing; I'd take Canada's situation over our "methhead" neighbour's any day. It's like waking up and once again the husband and wife are going at it, the teenager is selling dope meanwhile the kids are crying and all the other neighbours are looking over at the house and shaking their heads sadly. I hope Trudeau pulls a Biden and re-energizes his party by accepting that he's clearly not going to get re-elected and steps down; the Liberals (that's his political party) will go down to a huge defeat if he doesn't. More a matter of people eventually getting tired of the same people in power after a while, Canada is cyclical that way. It's just one of the many ways that Canada is not the USA.

Just looked through this thread - it's not here. A link to another post would work.

She wasn't running for an electoral position that required one. Did you know she didn't win any seats on any school boards either? Who cares? She's run for several positions and won every time. Works for me.

Yep, sure does. Have you seen us quoting anything from them and putting it out there as a reason one should not vote for Trump? I know I sure haven't, and I sure haven't seen it from anyone else on the Left. You guys on the other hand will drag anyone who has been on TV for more than one episode and put them on the dais to rant about their love for DJT and hate for everyone else. Kid Rock? LOL! Tell me, have you ever seen a jacked-up monster truck festooned with flags, obnoxious bumper stickers and obscenities directed towards the opponent of Biden? You know, like the Trump trucks, the Trump boats, the Trump convoys of trucks and boats. Nope, you haven't. Know why? Because he's just a guy who was running for and then was the President. We think he's done a pretty good job in challenging circumstances, but that's as far as it goes. Once he showed he didn't have the energy to defeat the GOP, we wanted him out and replaced by someone who could. It's because we Lefties care about policy and competence in government, but don't care so much about personalities. You guys are in a cult. Trump can say one thing and then the opposite the next day and you'll be 100% behind him on both of those days. There's no policy on the Trump Train, just the cult of personality and whatever gibberish comes out of his mouth or twitter feed on that day. Any "policy" is just a one-liner about how it's so easy to fix that particular issue and we'll be putting out our plan to resolve it in two weeks time. But the policy never actually arrives. Remember the amazing, incredible plan to replace Obamacare that would be cheaper, better and show how awful Obamacare really was? He ran on that. He had control of the House, Senate and Presidency. Where's the replacement Health Care plan? How about the Infrastructure Week? When does that start?

Here's a great trick for anyone wanting to find their way around paywalls. Copy the URL you want to read, then paste it into this site: https://paywallreader.com/ Bob's yer uncle!

You're so seldom correct that you should have the opposite of what you think as your default position just so you can be right about SOMETHING sometimes. Why would I be embarrassed about studying in the USA? They have some good schools. I studied engineering there but would rather not provide specifics so as to not be so easily identifiable. My experiences along with what I have previously posted on the forum would make me very easy to track down because they're uncommon. Does that make a difference? Are we required to provide credentials now for posting? I'm okay with it, but I don't agree with people having to do that because many folks are smart but don't have the opportunity to go to university or gain qualifications due to their life circumstance. I'm from Canada - our politics don't really affect the wider world very much, hence my interest in yours which do. I have also lived in the States for several years while studying and working, so I like the place and have many friends there. So yes, I find the politics there fascinating, much more interesting than the boring old social democracies like Canada that pretty much function as they should and provide a good place for people to live and raise families. I liked that place too, but it's too boring compared to Southeast Asia and the USA.

LOLOLOLOL! Sure, why not? Nothing is sticking so far, let's see....we tried turning her into the Joker, that didn't work. Let's double down on racism and misogyny, wait, hold on, why are our leaders telling us not to? THAT'S WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO! What about Hunter Biden's schlong! Or...Sleepy Joe's too old to run, he needs to resign immediately! Whoops, now we've got the old and sleepy guy. Impeach Kamala Harris for the border! Oh, why didn't we do that when we tried to impeach Mayorkas for the border? She's an anti-semite! Oh, what do you mean she's married to a Jew? She's a childless cat lady! Who helped raise her stepkids in a mixed family like so many other Americans (you're aware the divorce rate in the USA > 50% right?). And here we are. Hilary Clinton. E-mails! LOLOLOLOL!

I didn't attack him, perhaps he was a good placekicker? I don't recall who he played for. Maybe the Giants? My point was (please read slowly so you can understand it) that when you're posting political thoughts from obscure former NFL placekickers when it comes to the upcoming US Presidential election, that means you ain't got squat. It's the same reason why Kid Rock is the biggest "star" of Right-Wing music and Scott Baio has replaced Jon Voight as the highest profile actor. Anyone with a brain, a conscience, and relevance is not endorsing Trump and Vance.

And sexual improprieties. And campaign finance violations.

Can you provide a reference source that she was a DEI hire? I believe that this is a stated fact so requires backup evidence according to my interlocutors from the Right.