CardinalBacker

That’s a good question. I honestly don’t know. Some communities favor a more centralized, controlling form of government. That could possibly be it. I’ve also wondered if it was just out of tradition... those are some pretty traditional people-but I kinda doubt it. I’ve never understood that voting pattern.

The Democrats were never anti black... they were pro-racist. Still are. As most white people moved on from race being a key issue, there were plenty of people willing to join up for divisive racial rhetoric. Its George Wallace winning as a staunch segregationist but still winning in the 80s with 90% of the black vote. A lot of it is the free stuff.... people vote in their own self interest, so they can overlook a history of oppression if it gets them an Obama phone. It’s people who hate the founding fathers because of the history of slavery but vote Dem in spite of their history of bigotry within the last 60 years.

Colin Kaepernick has a right to his opinion and nobody wants to see other humans being needlessly injured by the police. I just disagree with a protest that does more to push people away from your cause than to unify it. There are countless ways to get the point across without alienating so many who would actually support your cause if the delivery wasn’t offensive. How badly has Kap and the BLM screwed up their delivery if we now have people out protesting and even shooting each other over something that we all fundamentally agree upon?

I’ll have to spend my time trolling message boards.

Randy Weaver and I support this opinion.

All at once our decision to play tomato cans in non-district doesn't look so sissy-fied.

Yes, sir....

I hate neither you or the game, my good sir.

I've never pronounced the "g" sound at the end of an active verb. I'm workin'. I'm talkin'. I'm arguin'. Doesn't change what I mean. If you murder someone, am you a killa or a killer? Same difference.

Nobody should use that word and anybody that does has race issues. I’d like to know of another word that’s offensiveness can be judged by the color of the speaker’s skin. The fact that “educated” people will try to argue that is okay for some and wrong for others is just baffling. The whole “I can but you can’t” is no different than when they were saying it about voting, going to school, riding on the front of the bus, etc.... There’s no point in claiming to be “equal” when you think that way.

*tales.

I haven’t heard that yet... the last that I sat the County was agreeing to a tax abatement for them. If the EPA won’t permit the thing, it does kinda go back to the guy who appoints the head of the EPA.

Well, some people did dislike him over race and religion. Not all, not even a majority, but some did. I had lunch in a cafe on the square in Newton the day after Obama was elected. People were openly discussing it and it disintegrated into people telling n-word jokes. Openly, back-and-forth, table to table. The kind of “jokes” I hadn’t heard since I was a kid. I didn’t join in, but I didn’t say anything and I didn’t stand up and leave, either. There are a few things in life I’d like a chance to do over, and that’s on the short list. My company matches my contributions with another 25%. That 25%in year one is hard to leave on the table. Schwab handles our accounts and they have tons of options for the employee to choose from in regards to the actual stock and securities. It’s been good to me, lol.

I'd disagree.... The only color business cares about is green. The only thing he did to make them mad was be anti-business, lol. If I had to guess, President Obama didn't have a hand in a lot of the things that were going on while he was in office. Obama was the most progressive president that we've had so far. The people who were appointed to positions throughout his administration were exceptionally liberal/progressive, and what you saw were regs and policies that negatively affected business and the economy. I'll be curious to see if that proposed new Chevron plant in Orange comes to exist if we elect a new president who's promising to end fossil fuel use and turn us onto new green energy sources. The Department of Energy and the EPA can absolutely hamstring that deal if the president lets them. When a candidate runs on promises of new programs that will help everybody, and the question of "how will we pay for it" always comes back to "we're gonna make Wall Street pay their fair share!" I don't know how you're situated financially, but it really helps if every time that a politician says "Wall Street," change that wording to "your 401k" and you'll get a lot more conservative, lol. You should have seen a boost in your pay after the tax cuts in 2017. It was small, but it happened. The tax plan actually hurt me a little bit because a lot of the business-related deductions that I was taking advantage of disappeared. And I say "hurt" but it really didn't. It used to be a no-brainer for me to file long form, and now that the standard deduction is bumped, standard vs itemized is really no difference for me-it's a wash, now. As far as affecting me personally? Not so much. But then again, I'm not really expecting anything from the government. I just kinda want to be left alone. Probably the most important part of the presidency is the appointment of federal judges and the selection of Supreme Court Justices. Those nine wise souls play a bigger part in public policy than I think anyone ever imagined. If you stop and think about it, most of the hot-button issues that we see today are ones that the Supreme Court decided, not Congress. Roe vs. Wade on abortion, the legalization of same-sex marriage, and even the results of the 2000 Presidential Election are the first ones that pop into my mind.

Good point.

These stories float around. I personally know a young lady who was bad sick during late February. She hasn't been since..... but she does have the antibodies. She wasn't tested at the time and everybody just assumed "flu." Who knows?

The only time that I really felt like there was a legitimate drag on the economy was during Obama's terms, and I think it was just the full-court press that was being used on businesses across the board. You had businesses being forced to pick up a big tab with Obamacare, piles of new regulations from the EPA, banking regs, the attempt to switch to green energy at the expense of fossil fuels, etc.... I think that when you fill the different departments with people who really want to transform the country in every conceivable direction, businesses just freeze. That's why I lose my crap every time Elizabeth Warren opens her mouth, lol.

Yup. I think a lot Trump votes are just that... Trump votes. They'll be gone when he's no longer on the ticket. Kind like the Obama votes that never turned out for Hillary. The cult of personality is real. You might not argue that Trump about whether or not Trump has been a conservative president, but I will. He's not a conservative personally, politically, or socially. He just got elected by a bunch of conservatives and the hardcore Trump votes. Debt and spending were up before COVID, and now it's off the charts. About the only thing that I can see conservative-ish is the push to rebuild the military. *I though you were close to my age, PamFam. I take back some of the mean things I've said. I ain't mad at you... you're just a kid, lol.

If there's one thing this has taught us, we can survive without sports. We can survive without movies and concerts. Isn't it crazy that we idolize, follow, and imitate athletes and celebrities who have been proven to be non-essential by Covid?

You can almost instantly tell if a person's living is "guaranteed" or not based on their answer to that question of whether or not to stay home. My guess is that if the governor said "we'll start teacher pay back up when in-class school resumes, teachers would instantly lose their objections to returning to class. The sad thing is that most people with "guaranteed" money don't realize that it's only slightly more "guaranteed." When people can't pay their school taxes because we shut down schools "just in case" it's gonna be sad times in teacher land. Other than the bars and sports, all other industries are back in business. Except education. Kids can't go to school, but they can dang sure bag your groceries and fry up your McChicken.

That's a good point. I can remember a little bit about Carter's era and everything that's come since. I've also got a degree in business, so people tend to overplay the role of the presidency over the fact that a lot of what happens is just cyclical. It goes up, it comes down... it's more about how those swings are regulated. I worked for a guy right out of high school in 1992 and he said "Y'all just wait... now that we've got a democrat (Clinton) back in office, the economy is gonna roar!." The funny thing is that he wasn't wrong. We had a good period under Reagan 81-88, but then a mild recession in the Bush (89-92) and Clinton was in the right place at the right time. He also wasn't anti-business. But by '00 it was time for another slowdown, Bush just happened to be in the right place for another decent run up until the bubble burst in the collapse of '07. The only time that I've noticed that trend not really holding true was during the Obama admin. In the aftermath of the '07 collapse, we were set for a big bounce back. It was strange that it never happened. It was just slow, stagnant growth. I blame the anti-business attitudes that were prevalent throughout his administration. Trump didn't do anything special except give the sign that he wasn't opposed to business.... and everybody that wanted job had one. Everybody that wanted a house bought one. These last few months have been a harsh reminder that the economy will do what it wants... we're just trying to manage the effects. People can talk all that they want about whose backs the country was built upon, but we've built the most fantastic civilization that the world has ever known, and business was the engine that got us here. When every policy that the left puts forth is funded by siphoning funds off of business and business owners under the guise of "paying their fair share," business will pull back and wait on the next guy to come along who isn't anti-business. As we come out of this Covid mess, you'd expect another period of big growth. About the only thing that can mess that up is an administration that thinks businesses shouldn't make profits. I'm scared when I see what the kids today think of landlords being immoral and parasitic for making a profit off of peoples' needs. It's craziness.

Just curious.... How many kids have died from this disease since it started? [Hidden Content] and CHA - Children and COVID-19 State Data Report 7.9.20 FINAL.pdf As of 7/9.... a grand total of 69 kids in the US have been reported as dying from COVID. Keep in mind that some states are counting people aged 0-24 years as "children." Who knows how accurate that this is. And I agree that "even one life lost is one life too many." But i'm going to go out on a limb and say that we're losing more kids to bicycle crashes and drownings. It's time to get back to school and make adjustments when (because they will happen) outbreaks occur.

I don’t know if it relates, but the latest out of the TEA today was calling for 8 weeks online to start the year instead of three. I think it’s time to call the whole thing off.

The citizens of Portland have rights, too, and theirs are equally important as the protestors. When local government refuses to administer the law and citizens are suffering, it’s right for the federal government to move in and protect the citizens that local government will not. The local government in Portland is a joke and anybody that’s been paying attention for the last few years is well aware of that fact. The feds don’t want to be there. The inaction on the part of locals is what is bringing this on. It’s not surprising.

Here’s the deal.... people always want to find “reasons” or “causes” at which to point blame. More crime does happen in more densely populated areas of the US. There are plenty of densely populated areas around the globe without the crime problems. There are high crime rates where ever lots of people commit lots of crimes. There are TONS of crimes committed inside of our prisons where there is no wealth or poverty. Maybe it’s just because that’s where the criminals hang out? Its a vicious circle of blame. I’m a little overweight. I can blame Coke for using so much sugar. I can blame restaurants for the large portion sizes and lack of healthy choices. I can blame the food industry for pricing healthy foods higher than junk food. I can point at racism as an underlying cause if I’m black. I can blame the healthcare system for not doing more to address wellness and prevention. But at the end of the day, we all know that I need to eat less and move around more. At the end of the day, my condition is a product of my choices. We’d all be a lot better off if we’d accept that.