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Negatory

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Posts posted by Negatory

  1. 1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

    Several lawsuits including a class action suit were filed against Robinhood today.  I know some VERY pissed off people right now....several had large positions they tried to sell but were locked out of their accounts with no warning before Gamestop tumbled 50% today.

    Robinhood is allowing people to close positions, just not create new ones.

    Which only benefits the short sellers who want to continue to create fake sell ladders to manipulate the price lower.

    Check out the order book that has entirely exhausted the sell pressure from private investment firms lol:

    j6g1paf4h3e61.jpg
     

    Hard to feel bad that investment bankers, which do nothing for the world, may have less boats. When short selling and greed goes too far.

     

    • Upvote 1
  2. 2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

    Biden gonna get a little taste of what Trump got at every turn.  The longest lasting impact of the Trump administration will be felt for years in the courts which he successfully stacked with conservative judges.

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-judge-blocks-biden-deportations?fbclid=IwAR3H9PBwX01ZG8C6Owg9LS9FM07a2urEHvgJXhpYWChW1nqPGxp-beq3yzU

     

    Don’t get em too scared or they’ll just pack the court and add 2 more judges

  3. Appreciate you gents taking the bait.

    Because the constant talk of the election being stolen - even by many on this forum - is a giant conspiracy theory that has no more substance than 9/11 hoaxers, yet over 70% of republicans entertain this particular theory. Including a disheartening amount of you all.

    You guys spouting "let's just say that there were no shenanigans" implies that there is a debate about the election results. There isn't. And you may not understand it now, but every time that you say shit like this you're just further undercutting faith in American democracy. All for a little bit of political power. How do you see this turning out for the future of the country?

    61 out of 62 election lawsuits filed by Trump/Giuliani failed in bipartisan courts The one that passed was PA saying that voters had 3 days to provide ID, but didn't come close to changing the results whatsoever. GA was recounted twice - Biden won three times in a row. Wisconsin was recounted once. Biden won twice in a row. Election officials - bipartisan officials - across all contested states have said that there is no meaningful fraud. To the point that Georgia secretary of state, a republican, has to tell the president to STFU about his elections.

    And if I'm just flat out wrong here, and you can prove that there is substantial election fraud that would have affected the results, let me know.

    Because the way that Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh and conservative media heads work is that they show real evidence that election fraud occurred 12 times across the state of GA. Then they have everyone take a poll that asks "do you think any election fraud happened?" And then 90% of people say "yes, of course there was election fraud, but-" and he cuts you off there and says that "an overwhelming majority of Americans believe there was a fraudulent election! Get out there and support the president! Jan 6!" Without representing the fact that the majority of rational people talking were going to finish their sentence:

    "Yes, of course there was election fraud, but it was small and limited. There was fraud probably on all sides. But a handful of people registering incorrectly - or even a handful of people maliciously doing things incorrectly - does not warrant the destruction of the democratic process."

    Provide proof that substantial election fraud occurred that would have changed the results or STFU saying things like "Let’s just say there were no shenanigans regarding the election itself and everything was pure, fair and balanced."

    • Like 3
  4. 13 hours ago, AirGuardianC141747 said:

    Let’s just say there were no shenanigans regarding the election itself and everything was pure, fair and balanced.

    Well the shenanigans wouldn't have been needed if the republicans hadn't faked 9/11 to garner unilateral support and install fox news and the patriot act in 2001. YOU really only have yourself to blame.

    • Haha 1
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  5. Do you ever think that Trump may have gotten more negative press coverage because he’s a worse human being with worse policies?

    Just like how I talk more shit about my sisters abusive ex husband than her current husband?

    Not everyone is entitled to 50-50 good:bad press.

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 2
  6. 5 hours ago, slackline said:

    So here’s my take on it.  If there are people far and above more qualified that would clearly do the job way better than those he has nominated it is incredibly bad and simple pandering.  If the people he’s nominated are close enough in quality/performance to those that are “better” than them, where’s the harm in giving those people that typically haven’t ever even been considered for those types of positions a shot?  

    If there will be no discernible difference in how well the job is being done, I think it is beneficial to add some flavor to what is typically incredibly homogeneous.  I’m not married to this idea, and could be talked out of it by sound arguments, but I can see more benefits by going with different over same old, same old when the end product is so close that it doesn’t matter.  That other person is still going to be successful.  Commence spear throwing.

    The blunt truth is it hurts non minorities. That’s the harm in affirmative action policies. It’s why white male pilots, for the most part, should go ahead and stop applying to be astronauts.

     

    Edit: The sinister end result is the debasing of the meritocracy.

  7. Here's the actual scientific article because, when it comes to science, mainstream news articles are basically worthless:

    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.427166v1.full

    BL: It looks like it could be bad, with over 50% of natural produced antibody samples not showing immunity to this strain. They predict that folks, even if they already had COVID or got the first vaccine, will now be able to get COVID 2.0, but this is a limited evaluation. They never tested actual people that were vaccinated, and they never actually saw a secondary reinfection. They just produce evidence that points to likelihood. Time will tell. God help us.

  8. This is all somewhat ironic, because fairness issues up until very recently were primarily based around the extremely conservative talk radio bias that has existed for decades.

    Rules that would force private entities to protect political speech existed before under the fairness doctrine, which was repealed during the Reagan presidency.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine#Opposition

    Many have attempted to revive it, but attempts have almost been unilaterally opposed by conservatives up until this point because it was politically in their favor to maintain a monopoly on things like radio messaging. Now that one private entity is showing an obvious anti-far-right bias, conservatives cry foul and say "not fair!" The hypocrisy is glaring.

    • Upvote 1
  9. 49 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

    Overblown...thanks for proving my point...there is no longer civil discussion.  Free speech is free only when you agree with it.  I don't care for Trump, but who decides what is truth or a lie?  You have completely walked past the fact that Twitter locked the account of the NY Post because they deemed the story to be false information when in fact it has proven to be 100% true...the laptop is Hunter's.  Facebook then attempted to purge the story as well.  That should be frightening to everyone...this has nothing to do with Trump.  Two of the major controllers of information to the American public stepped in to silence negative information that proved to be true about the Biden family and used the cloak of 230 as protection.  Previous to this event these things only happen in places like Russia and North Korea.

    Not at all. I don't agree with a lot of free speech, but I still want it protected. But there is a different between an opinion I don't agree with and an actual mistruth. Have any opinion in the world, that's fine. But I don't think lying about facts deserves a pass.

    And brother, what do you mean the 100% truth about the laptop? What was hidden precisely? A last minute hail mary to smear Joe Biden based off of circumstantial evidence presented by Rudy Giuliani? What you actually have to prove is that a 50 year old drug addict's dealings directly are tied to his father's finances. There has never been even an iota of proof that Joe Biden has been involved with anything related to Hunter Biden's tax problems or foreign business. Yes, there is an FBI investigation into Hunter Biden. No, there is no substance into investigating Joe Biden, like OANN and Tucker Carlson try to insinuate.

    You do realize that in late October 2020, FOX news even decided not to run the story based on the extreme lack of evidence. 

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fox-news-passed-on-chance-to-break-hunter-biden-laptop-story-over-credibility-concerns-report

    This one's not a giant conspiracy against conservative voices, give me a break. Every news outlet from Antifa to Fox agreed that running a circumstantial story with no substance was not real press.

    Also, because we're all about maxims, how about "innocent until proven guilty?" You defending the ability for anyone to throw any political attacks they want, regardless of veracity/evidence and without accountability, is not something that I think I'm going to agree with you about.

    • Upvote 1
  10. 1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

    Maybe the internet as we know it should be destroyed.  As it stands there are a few tech conglomerates that control EVERYTHING and they have shown they are willing to silence free speech.  Many are troubled by them banning Trump (complete overkill as they respond to the mob), but i am more concerned about the double standard because they are picking sides.  The did nothing when Madonna said "I want to burn down the White House, the did nothing when Kathy Girffin stood there with the severed head of Trump, they did nothing when BLM rolled out their "Fry police like bacon" chat, they did nothing when BLM and other extreme groups burned cities and attacked Government property this summer....all of these acts inciting violence but it happened on the other side of the political aisle.  MOST concerning is they silenced the NY Post when they published the story about Hunter Biden's laptop...calling it fake news when in fact it is true and there is an active federal investigation.  If these few companies that control our access to information can choose sides and determine what we are allowed to see then our system is done.  I am stunned that more people on here are not shocked...you took and oath to the Constitution, not a political party...you should be appalled that we have abdicated control of the free press to Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook.

    Disagree here, I think your point is extremely overblown. You could replace “they” and “them” in your post with Twitter and Facebook. Twitter and Facebook are not the internet. Let me repeat. Twitter and Facebook are not “the internet.”

    Now if you’re talking about the sensible regulation of over reaching, monopolistic large tech companies, I’m all ears. But that’s not your post. Instead, you’re mad that a company has a political leaning. Newsflash: all companies do. Find a different company.

    The internet in its current form is a worldwide international marvel, not just an American free speech machine. And if you go on it and actually look outside Twitter and Facebook, you can find literally every group of people still has their place and their voice. I’m not keen to make the American internet into the Chinese version anytime soon.

    Also, they don’t control your access to information. YOU control your access to information, and, sure, the fact that a bunch of dumbasses get their news from Facebook is a huge contributing factor to the problem. But that’s not facebooks fault. That’s your great Aunt Kay being an idiot who doesn’t look at multiple sources.

    I don’t see Twitter or Facebook limiting the ability for Fox or MSNBC or CNN or the Washington Post to put out their own stories. I don’t see Facebook shutting down 4chan. It’s not like Twitter took Parler off the web.

    My rub with a lot of this is you could just as easily argue that former president Trump getting online and spouting lies and misinformation is as destructive or even more destructive to the country. Yet there’s no discussion there? Hell, I think you’d be hard pressed to argue against that. Here’s just a few of the gems of falsehood and disinformation Trump has produced and spread using Twitter and Facebook that have helped us get to where we are today:

    1) President Obama isn’t born in the US and isn’t a US citizen. YGBSM.

    2) “Just stay calm, it will go away” in reference to COVID. Turned out his plan isn’t working so great, maybe should have followed science/his own advisors.

    3) “VOTER FRAUD IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY, IT IS FACT” - thousands of bipartisan government workers have argued that there is no meaningful amount of fraud. The other side has failed to prevent any actual evidence. Yet this is the speech you are trying to protect?

    4) “Republicans will always protect people with pre-existing conditions” while stripping away protections

    5) “Tarrifs are making us rich” in 2018 as economic experts showed that we were and still are the people who pay the lions share of the costs

    6) Single payer healthcare is a “radical left socialist” movement that Dems are using to turn America into Venezuela. When 90% of first world democratic nations have something like it.

    7) “We’ve pulled off an economic turnaround of historic proportions” in 2018 when the economy was doing just fine coming out of Obama’s second term.

    8: “There was no crime” in the Mueller probe, which resulted in charges brought down on nearly 50 people close to Trump. Oh, and it still has the words in there about “individual #1,” if you ever actually read it

    9) “We’re building the wall as we speak” in 2018, as they were not in fact doing so

    10) Hell, choose between the 30,000 false or misleading claims that the Washington post found. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4

    At what point do straight lies and misinformation from the president no longer deserve coverage? At what point does lying lose its “press protections?” At what point can a sitting US presidents misinformation cause a threat to America. Because there is a point. And there is not a good political way to reign it in.

    And I’ll use your overblown oath example. You’re an officer who swore an oath to the constitution to defend from all enemies, including domestic. This bro tore our country apart and made enough people think that the election results were deliberately and simultaneously faked across 6 different states that he got a mob to legitimately invade the legislative branch of our government. And you think that should be protected? He’s off his rocker, and why should companies be required to host his lies?

    What I got out of this is, actually, those in office should have to be held accountable for anything they say. If they say things that are provably false at the time they say them, then that should be illegal. Free speech and free press doesn’t equal politicians getting to lie to our faces on every platform that exists.

    • Like 3
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  11. I don't see how ending 230 is actually going to help. In my eyes, ending 230 protections would have one of two effects:

    1) Companies are more wary of being sued, and they actually censor a lot more stuff based on their opinions of what is right and wrong

    2) Companies try to maintain neutrality by allowing literally anything and everything, turning the whole internet into 4chan

  12. 1 hour ago, pawnman said:

    Agreed.  You won't find many people bemoaning all the stable hands and carriage drivers put out of work by the automobile, or all the phone switchboard operators put out of work by VOIP, or all the typists in what used to be called the steno pool becoming obsolete.

    Sure, people are likely to get hurt in the short-term.  But the vast majority will be made better off by the technology.  This isn't a new argument...just read up on the original Luddites to see how long people have feared these new technologies.

    Interesting argument that is legitimately making me rethink a lot of assumptions. My typical argument to post modern society is what happens to the truck drivers when trucks become automated? Why should all the money from that industry go to just a few people with automated trucks while everyone else goes out of work?

    But I guess in reality the majority of profits would be dwindled down by competition and passed on via cost savings to the consumer.

    Still would probably be nice if there was an easier way to switch professions in America, but modernization may not be as bad as I previously thought.

  13. 3 hours ago, brabus said:

    @Negatory There you go again responding without actually reading what I wrote. I never brought legality or the constitution into my statement even remotely, I simply said picking and choosing who is suppressed (e.g. double standard) is what most people are pissed about. The group who actually think Twitter did something illegal/unconstitutional is wrong (we agree there). I hope you vehemently support the Christian baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple.

     

    You implied that suppression would lead to involvement from the ACLU. Seemed to me that implies legality. Glad to see we're on the same page.

    And I do support the baker in that it’s 100% his legal right. It’s also 100% my legal right to personally hold that against him.

    • Like 1
  14. 14 hours ago, brabus said:

    If you don’t and are choosing to punt people off your platform you disagree with politically while looking the other way for people you do agree with, well that’s suppression.

    https://www.newsweek.com/former-aclu-lawyer-says-course-twitters-ban-trump-censorship-1560970
     

    Suppression and first amendment violations are literally only offenses if the government does it. Not a private organization. Twitter is a private organization. The government, whether you like it or not, had no part in this decision. In fact, I’d say that they would have chosen the opposite result. I don’t think your legal argument or points really have much substance here.

    Also, Twitter has no legal requirement to follow their terms of service how you understand it - they can interpret it however they want. The free market principal here is that if they abuse their power, you’ll totally go find another service. Technically, they could kick off all conservatives. You are ALLOWED to suppress free speech if it’s your own message board. Do you think some of the conservative message boards would let AOC and Bernie spread their messages easily?

    But from a moral perspective, I get that it’s messed up. We have handed over a lot of trust and the keys to people who run the internet, while not ensuring to make sure it stays fair or regulated. And these tech companies have been allowed to gobble up all their competition and essentially become monopolies. Caveat emptor and the free market doesn’t always work out in the long term. Especially not in this cases And I agree that I would have preferred to see Trump not be banned. But i still don’t think it’s illegal under our current law.

  15. 47 minutes ago, brabus said:

    Tons of “homeboys” exist who don’t see full time employment as their preferred option to get money - they prefer govt social programs instead (and only supplement as little as possible with an actual job). That’s the type of people the current system produces, and the type who shouldn’t receive direct payment. The system needs an overhaul, so I guess don’t hate the player, hate the game?

    Maybe you could solve this problem by giving everyone money, but subtracting out the amount of benefits you are already receiving. E.g. if you get 20k in welfare and housing, you don’t get 20 more.

    I think there are nuanced, not one size fits all, solutions that could address these issues.

  16. 35 minutes ago, pawnman said:

    IIRC, the argument for giving payments directly to people was that it was less expensive to just write those checks than it would have been to pay for the administrative burden of things like paying rent to landlords, paying mortgages to lending companies, paying for food through something like an EBT card, etc.

    Yes, this is entirely it, it’s horridly inefficient just so people can sneer and say “the poor wouldn’t know what to do with money anyways.” What? The vast majority would spend their money on food and shelter, I’ll tell you that.

    $3.1T so far, with the vast majority of benefits helping big business or pump the stock market. Could have given every single person almost $10k for that amount of money. Do you feel like the average American has received $10k worth of government assistance?

    • Upvote 1
  17. 8 hours ago, ViperMan said:

    Homeboy wasn't working before there was a pandemic, he was cool with not having money? Cool. Why, now, does he need a check?

    I think this is a poor representation of the problem, because I’m certain if that “homeboy” doesn’t have money, he’s trying to find a way to get some. Every human in American society has to spend money on food and shelter or else they become destitute. It’s not a “choice” to engage in the American economy for all but the most privileged of people.

     

  18. 2 hours ago, jazzdude said:

     


    Even if you threw all the money at healthcare, the fact of the matter is there is not enough doctors and nurses in our country (and that was before the pandemic). It still takes 4 years to make a medical resident (assuming they have their bachelor's degree), and an additional 2-4 years to make them a doctor who doesn't require supervision. It takes 2 years to make a registered nurse, though many places won't hire an RN if they don't have a BSN (4 year degree), even though they both have the same license and can do all of the same procedures and care.

    Sure, you could buy more equipment, assuming the supply chain could accommodate a surge in demand.

    Also, you can't just tell the high risk to stay home without an economic impact. Maybe the elderly, but anyone with other risk factors but younger are out and working. Maybe they can telework, maybe not. If they work for a smaller company, that absence will be felt, and that person would likely be replaced by a new hire (if there's another person available, since a people staying home on quarantine means there will be competition for workers). Or the company reorganizes and eliminates that position. What happens to the person that was allowed to quarantine post pandemic? Their job is now gone, and businesses have gotten more efficient.

    It also doesn't fully solve the exposure problem. If one person in the household is high risk and the other isn't, you still have someone going out into public and risks bringing it home with them. Yes, there's some lower risk if that high-person can stay home, but it hasn't eliminated it for them, especially if things like masks and social distancing aren't in place.

     

    This is an interesting discussion, and, just as a reminder, it’s all a hypothetical policy.


    I think a lot of your points are more a problem of tradition than anything else. I think there were many ways to think outside of the box. And this is coming from someone who believed in lockdowns and still trusts the science. I just don’t know if the current plan (threats of lockdown) is tenable in American culture. Lockdowns, when followed, work fine. But lockdowns in reality don’t work due to a multitude of sociological factors.

    For example, if we had implemented a strong national health jobs/retraining system (perhaps bolstered by a trillion dollars), maybe we could have rapidly trained a surplus of low risk, unemployed people to be “respiratory techs.” That could reduce load on docs and nurses. Oh and since it’s an unprecedented emergency, let’s not arbitrarily require that training to be 1-2 years. Desperate times call for appropriate risk acceptance IMO, so let’s make it a ~6 week, intensive certification. I am absolutely sure there is something we could have done as a nation to respond to this from a job perspective to reduce the strain on the Manning side of the healthcare system. 

    And I agree that this solution wouldn’t 100% solve the problem, but 100% is too lofty of a goal. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. With policy like this, you could probably hit the 69% solution and at least benefit a bigger portion of society while preserving liberty and life for those that aren’t as affected.

    And to your point about the high risk person that would lose their job under this hypothetically policy, I don’t think it makes much sense (as it would be worse under current policy). Let’s look at their lives under the current present day policy. They have two choices: 1) quit for no pay so that they don’t get COVID, business probably goes under, they go on unemployment, doesn’t work great. 2) they work and take a risk of dying, but, if they make it, they get their job! 

    I don’t see how this is better.

    Under the hypothetical plan, their choices are better:

    1) they quit, use the $20k a year to not get sick and risk reduce. It’s the same as #1 except now they aren’t begging for food stamps. Rent is paid. Society around them still works.

    2) they choose to work still. Maybe they get to keep the $20k, maybe they don’t, I’m not sure. That part of policy needs to be fleshed out. But, on the whole, the hope is enough people, given the resources, would choose #1 to greatly reduce their chances of death and/or severe illness 

    Im not saying that you force people to not work. In this scenario it would just give them money that allows them the choice. Because right now, the choices aren’t good at all. Maybe it would fall off based on income, I don’t know. Bottom line, if that dude still wants to work, so be it. But he accepts the risk to himself and has a reasonable alternative other than food stamps and poverty if he realizes it’s dangerous. If someone dies when they have no option but to work, it’s a tragedy. But if someone who was high risk died when the gov was bankrolling them $1500-2000 a month to stay safe and they disregarded, well now it’s more of their own fault.

    And for folks in a household, that’s not the govs problem to solve. If the gov gives a 69 year old high risk man who lives with his low risk family 20k a year to reduce his risk (arbitrary figure), he and his family should use that money to not live there. That’s the point. High risk parents with kids should use that money to reduce their risk by having their kids attend virtual school. Low risk people in low risk families wouldn’t receive anything, as it’s not needed for the overwhelming majority.

    This is all pretty rambly, as it’s hypotheticals, but the point is I think there is a better compromise between liberty and life - for both high and low risk folks - if you incentivize it appropriately.

    One final data point highlighting absurdity: none of us on active duty - especially officers and SNCOs - should have received $1800 in stimulus this year. But a loooooot of us did. The fact that we did highlights the inefficiencies and poor incentive structure when it comes to the current gov Covid spending.

  19. 31 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

    Open up the economy. 
     

    if you’re opposed to this you probably have been getting a steady paycheck every two weeks. 
     

    check your privilege 

    I can’t disagree with this based on our current government’s ineptitude. They are damning poor people and small businesses. Even landlords.


    A more middle grounded solution would have been to provide funds to high risk folks to actually quarantine while allowing everyone that’s not high risk to take whatever precautions they want. Would still result in over hospitalization, so target that problem.

    To put it in perspective, we could have given the 100M “high risk” Americans 20k this year (enough for food and shelter, don’t come outside) and still had $1T for medical system fortifications (this is an actually insane amount of money) for the same cost as the $3.1T in stimulus bills we’ve wasted. It’s insane.

    I’m not saying that’s the right answer, but it sure as hell would have done more for America than whatever the hell we did. And it would have actually involved personal responsibility and liberty, at least to an extent.

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 2
  20. 1 hour ago, pbar said:

    Nice strawman.  But fine with me.  Coast Guard is the only service that defends the homeland as it's primary mission.   The rest of us are defending our freeloading "allies" and corporate access to overseas markets.   See, two can do this strawman thing.

    Fair enough, my point wasn’t well connected.


    It’s just blatantly ironic that the “small government” side believes that the power of government should be diminished, while at the same time also typically believing that we should have either the same size or bigger military.

    And thats with the military accounting for over 50% of the discretionary spending of the government. And yes, I do believe the power of government is generally about directly proportional to the amount of money it expends.

    What should the government power be? No income tax, like the 1700s/1800s? Or is WWI your opus magnus? Maybe Reagan years? It’s a spectrum.

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