The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I realize I'm going to be accused of baiting but my interest is actually legit. I seriously am perplexed by this. I'm curious if you feel any different now than you did on voting day about Biden and or Democratic policies dealing with the economy. I have friends & relatives that will die on the thought we are suffering because of Trump & Putin and that just blows my mind. According to the latest Gallup polls 4 out of 10 people still approve of Biden.  If that is your beliefs then maybe you can explain it better to me than others have. For the record I also have friends who have made the jump to the conservative side but that makes sense to me.

To answer your totally disingenuously bad faith question:

Do I feel any different than I did on voting day?

Yes, I am even more convinced that Trump is a wouldbe dictator and his followers are indistinguishable from the Germans who supported Hitler in the 1930s.

I think you meant to ask do I feel any different than I did on inauguration  day.  The answer to that is Not really.  Even more convinced Susan Collins is a spineless fool, for her claims she thought Roe was safe.  Never been a fan of Biden and I knew he was inheriting a mess he has done a decent job given the limits imposed by the filibuster.  I wish he had more of a backbone and pushed for ending the filibuster and packed the court, but I never actually expected that.

But please stop with your bullshit.  You want to ask if my opinion has changed just ask.  But we all know your repeated claims of every day another one of your former ultra-liberal friends joining the GOP are total fabrications.

No, no regrets.

The struggles with the economy, specifically inflation, which is what's on everyone's mind, is not due to the current administration, but a bunch of factors happening all over the world.


Inflation is complicated, probably partially cyclical, but also the cost of staving off depression during tough times like we just had and are continuing to have because of the pandemic and all the related crap that goes with that.

Gas -- same situation.  It's not US policy that makes it expensive.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/12/while-everyone-else-is-kicking-themselves-for-voting-for-biden-college-educated-women-are-doubling-down/

Not just people I know. Lot's of MSNBC used here to illustrate how every demographic but college educated "single" women are regretting 2020. I've mentioned this before but you might want to get out and meet some actual people.

Yes, some folks that voted D in 2018 will vote r in 2022. But that doesn't show a shift of liberals to conservative.  You had conservatives who voted D because of Trump, they are voting for the party they always voted for.  Midterms are always rough for the presidents party.  The one thing the Dems have going for them is most of the 18 and 19 year old new voters are progressive. And the majority of people who removed themselves from the voting rolls by refusing to wear a mask and get the vax are R

So..... you claim that "Trump is a wouldbe dictator and his followers are indistinguishable from the Germans who supported Hitler in the 1930s." but yet you would support Biden ending the filibuster and packing the supreme court, basically what a "would be" dictator would do and yet trump is the "would be" dictator. Do you not see the hypocrisy of your actions? Do you not see your connection to those "Germans who supported hitler"

Do you know what a dictator is? or even how it's defined?

I just became a CNA this past April and hoodie, You are making it an interest for me to look into working in a mental health facility so i can understand you a little better, although i will probably stick to the nursing home/rehab center environment for now, but for the future i will give it serious consideration.

There are also people that aren't voting on issues and are probably low information.

They just switch back and forth because they are always unhappy with the incumbent.
There are people who vote out the incumbent solely on how the economy is, regardless of the causes of that.
There are some people who who only vote based on whether their personal situation is better or worse, regardless of cause.

But ideologically, the people who I know that voted for Biden because on their stances on issues, still support Biden.

If you truly believe what you wrote, then I have some mountainside property here in Florida to sell you.

Yes, I know what a dictator is.  I also know what a democracy is.  

A legislative body in which 41 people can overrule 59 is NOT a democracy.

A court of 9 in which a majority of the appointees were appointed by people who lost the popular vote is NOT a democracy.  

There is absolutely nothing democratic about the Garland/Barrett hypocrisy.  

Fixing these undemocratic problems would be a step in the right direction.  
  

Inflation is Biden's fault right?

Here is some recent inflation data....

"The annual inflation rate surged to 5.1% in Q1 of 2022 from 3.5% in Q4, surpassing market estimates of 4.6% and marking the highest reading since the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax in the early 2000s, reflecting soaring fuel prices and surging building cost. Transport prices rose the most since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (13.7% vs 12.5% in Q4), while additional upward pressures came from cost of food and non-alcoholic beverages (4.3% vs 1.9%), alcohol & tobacco (1.8% vs 1.1%), housing (6.7% vs 4%), furnishings (4.9% vs 3.6%), recreation (3% vs 2.1%), health (3.5% vs 3.3%), and insurance & financial services (2.7% vs 2.2%). On a quarterly basis, consumer prices went up 2.1%, the most since Q3 2000, after a 1.3% gain in Q4, mainly due to a jump in cost of new dwellings and fuel."

I am sure you blame all of this on Biden.

\/









\/




\/





\/

 So please explain to me what Biden can do to get Australia's inflation under control.   

Ending the filibuster is completely legal and has been done twice in the last decade (first for non-SCOTUS judicial appointments, then for Supreme Court appointments).  If we had ACTUAL filibusters that require Senators to physically speak without stopping to hold the floor, as is prescribed in the Constitution, filibuster reform would be unnecessary.  But because the Senate is full of a bunch of Medicare-aged senior citizens, they adopted a rule that says you can just write "I filibuster" on a piece of paper and that is accepted as equivalent to physically standing and talking.  That's nonsense.

As for "packing the Supreme Court": just as the rules said that Mitch McConnell can refuse to even hold a hearing for Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland, and the rules said that Mitch McConnell can fill a Supreme Court seat while people are literally casting their ballots for president, the rules also say that Congress may add or remove seats on the Supreme Court.  The rules are what they are, right?

None of the above make Mitch McConnell (or Donald Trump) a dictator, or even a wanna-be dictator.  It might be a dick move, but it's completely within the rules.  The things that make Trump a dictator-in-waiting are:

1) he insists that his election loss is illegitimate and pushes relevant state authorities to overturn it
2) when that is unsuccessful, he incites a mob to go invade the Capitol and stop his successor's confirmation by Congress

Those actions are not within the rules; they are the hallmark of an autocracy.  Comparing ending the filibuster or expanding the Court - two things which have previously happened in this country multiple times, peacefully - to a violent invasion of our seat of government, specifically intended to prevent the transfer of power is absurd.  It's not even in the same ballpark.

On Election Day 2020, Trump had not yet sent a violent mob to overthrow Congress.  So yes, I feel quite different today about the importance of electing Biden than I did then.

I think the more interesting question is: after voting for Trump in 2020 and witnessing January 6th, along with the subsequent invasion of Ukraine by Putin (after Trump illegally delayed foreign aid to Ukraine that had been allocated by Congress), do YOU feel any different about your vote that day?  Or would you happily pull the lever for Trump again?

I would pull it faster. In my mind I completely think we would be in better shape if he was in charge. The guy is an ass but he is a very smart ass ... no pun intended.

As far as your 2 points you made about Trump ... I agree with his whining abou the election and he did pressure people to change the results but I don't know if he did anything illegal. I don;t know if that makes him a dictator as much as a crybaby.  As far as January 9th just like everything else I blame those that were there and broke the law.

Not related at all, but since I'm a Republican living in Massachusetts I don't bother voting for President because my vote DOES NOT COUNT.

Read your own words.  Pressuring people to change the results of an election is a crime.  

I don't see why you would be unsure if pressuring people to overturn the results of an election is "illegal," but let me help you out: it's extremely illegal.

And just to be clear here:
"We need to make sure all the legal votes were counted accurately" is not illegal.
"I need you to find enough votes to declare me the winner" is.

I would like your vote to count, it should.  It would if we got rid of the electoral college and elected the president based on the popular vote.  And before you whine too much that everyone always votes democrat in the state --- five out of the last six governors of the state were republicans.  The state will vote for republicans just not insane ones.  I was planning on voting for Baker for his reelection in 2022 until I heard he wasn't seeking reelection.  

Who's whining? This is a Democrat controlled state. Just a fact.  It is what it is. But it is funny about Massachusetts that the voters seem to like Republican political candidates on the local level and Democratic candidate son a national level.

Just because I didn't want to let this meatball float by without taking a swing:

From the day he entered office to the day he left, Trump had the worst record of job losses since such records have been kept in this country.  He inherited a booming economy from Obama and drove it directly into a ditch during COVID, in a way that other countries around the world did not.  Biden turned the economy around and, during an ongoing pandemic, has posted the most job gains on record.

But, in the interests of fairness: if Trump had not been so pathetically incompetent and set so many jobs on fire, there wouldn't have been as many empty jobs available for Biden to fill.

Mass voters aren’t nearly as left leaning as they are made out to be, but actually quite centrist. But the factors for the dichotomy is 4 fold.  1. The democratic party in mass is quite progressive.  2 The republican party in Mass is quite centrist.  3. On the national level the democrats tend to choose the most centrist members of the caucus for leadership. 4 On the national level the republicans tend to choose the most extremist members of their caucus for leadership.

So when a person like Baker (centrist) runs against someone like Warren (progressive) for governor, The centrist wins.  But if it was Baker vs Warren for Senate.  The candidates themselves matter less the real question is who do you want as Majority leader Schumer (centrist) or McConnel (extremist) .  And once again the centrist wins.  

Martha Coakley lost to Charlie Baker for governor AND Scott Brown for Senate, so I don't see how this model accounts for both of those outcomes.  Is she a progressive, or a centrist?

Seems to me that Martha Coakley is just a terrible candidate, whom MA Dem primary voters seemed to love for some unknown reason.

This is complete BS and I really hope you don't believe this ... lol.  Trump's ecomony was among the best ever. Wasn't Obama. Obama's economy was getting better but Trump quickly proved how fast a president can have an effect on the economy. Covid killed it but the covid effect is over and other than bragging about jobs coming back that democrats shut down to begin with nothing is bouncing back. So other than taking credit for rebounding businesses you destroyed I can't see anything to be proud of in handling this ecomony.

You and I both know that there was major fraud committed in the election to get Trump voted out.   The liberals will never admit it.

CF, I'd like you to respond to this.  I need to see where your head's at.

I see you're still in the conservative echo chamber on this one.  Here's a reality check for you:

Trump will have the worst jobs record in modern U.S. history. It’s not just the pandemic. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/08/trump-jobs-record/)

President Trump took office at the crest of the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. He leaves presiding over the worst labor market in modern U.S. history, as an already-sputtering economic recovery has turned negative.

Friday’s awful jobs report from the Labor Department showed there were still 3 million fewer jobs in the United States than there were on Inauguration Day 2017, when Trump stood in front of the Capitol and vowed to reverse the American carnage.

No other modern president has left the U.S. with a smaller workforce than it had when they took office. Since the government started keeping track in 1939, no other president has even seen significant job losses during a single presidential term — though job growth during George W. Bush’s first four years in office was essentially flat.

Here's some more sources if you don't like Washington Post:

Fortune: Trump to leave office with the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover (https://fortune.com/2021/01/11/us-economy-jobs-numbers-trump-compared-past-presidents-worst-record-since-hoover/) (note: we didn't start keeping those records until after Hoover)
CNN: Trump’s job losses are the worst of any American president on record (https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/04/economy/august-jobs-report-trump-jobs-record/index.html)
USA Today: Fact check: Chart of job growth by president shows historic unemployment under Trump (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/06/fact-check-pandemic-unaccounted-presidential-job-growth-chart/6177339002/)
We rate this claim TRUE, based on our research. More jobs were lost during the Trump administration than any other in history.
Reuters: Trump ends his term like a growing number of Americans: out of a job (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-trump/trump-ends-his-term-like-a-growing-number-of-americans-out-of-a-job-idUSKBN29D30I)

Trump's management of the pandemic was absolutely catastrophic.  He insisted over and over that it was not a big deal, and his corrupt cronies used the opportunity to gouge state governments who were trying to get critical medical supplies to help address the problem.  It is no accident that the economy quickly recovered under Biden even throughout another year-plus of the ongoing pandemic.

The claim that Trump was better on the economy than Biden is exactly the same as the claim that Dubya was better on the economy than Obama.  It's unhinged Republican fantasy; completely delusional with no basis in reality.

I'm over the election and thought Trump should have moved on as well. I havn't been paying attention but I guess evidence has come to light that he did more "pressuring" than I had thought ... not that anything will come of it. I do think there are issues with election integrity in general but while there could have been problems ultimately it was Trump's and or Republicans fault as they were in power when it happened.

I think we need to verify ourselves when we vote. If out of the country then you need to do the same somehow. You can get verified online these days. People act like minorities don't have ID, live within 50 mies of a voting place, and aren't smart enough to use the internet but I actually know they are just as capable as everyone else.  I also think every vote should be counted and done prior to 2 hours after the polls close.  I know it's kind of a joke but we have had live voting on reality shows for years. Can not our government do just as much let alone better? Seems like we are keeping gray areas out there for a reason and nothing positive comes to mind. It's freaking 2022 for crying oout loud.

yes I get it. just saw the president's talking box say as much too. Everything is everyone else's fault. Take a year off Trump's presidency and we were soaring and on our way to energy independence. I bet you had much more expendable cash than you do now. It's kind of funny because most of those lost jobs came at the expense of Democratic shutdowns.

Not sure if you meant to reply to me instead of yourself.

But if so, this premise doesn't make much sense.  Unless the economy-destroying shutdown-obsessed Democrat-run blue states immediately became pro-business and anti-shutdown the moment Trump left office, there is no difference here; Democrats are still job-killing commies regardless, right?  You're just making excuses for why Trump's 9 months of COVID were a complete disaster, while Biden immediately righted the ship (https://www.thebalance.com/jobs-report-monthly-employment-growth-statistics-3305732) when he got into office.  This is directly and entirely due to the Trump Administration's pathetic COVID response; it is no accident that Mr. "The pandemic will be over by Easter" (note: Easter 2020 was April 12) presided over TWENTY MILLION LOST JOBS in April 2020, the very same month he said COVID would be done with.

And for the record, even prior to COVID Trump's economic growth was feeble compared to Obama's second term, much less Biden's term so far:

(http://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/20480.jpeg)

You can make a stronger argument for the George W. Bush economy than the Donald Trump economy.  Trump was literally that bad.

I think it's foolish to equate the success of an entire economy to a president.  You can look at individual policies and say that it's good/bad for the economy in the short or long term, but all this stuff is so complicated and related to so many outside factors, sometimes set decades in advance.  ...not to mention global issues, technology trends, etc.

Also, there can be foolish short-term solutions that help in the moment but are harmful long term, and vice-versa.

I think Dubya's economic collapse was due to long-term systemic factors (notably: deregulation) that started at the end of Clinton's second term with Gramm-Leach-Bliley in November 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in December 2000; these factors were accelerated greatly during the Bush Administration.  Bill Clinton does share some blame here (he signed those two bills), but Bush poured gasoline on the fire.

In contrast, the terrible performance during COVID was almost entirely on Trump.  The US had the worst COVID response of any G8 nation, and the Trump Administration took precisely the wrong step at every juncture: from downplaying the danger, to shifting blame onto the Chinese with impotent travel bans, to profiteering from the response.  It was a master class in how NOT to respond to a pandemic.

I'm totally on board with blaming Trump for how bad things got with COVID....for sure.  But there was going to be a downturn regardless.

You can definitely look at policy and talk about degrees of how bad things were.  Had Trump (and the larger COVID-denier, anti-masking, anti-science movement) taken things seriously, perhaps this wouldn't have been as severe or as long.  That's a fair statement.

It's stupid to blame Carter for a bad economy.
It's stupid to credit Reagan for a good one.
It was also stupid to credit Clinton, as he oversaw a tech boom.
Bush was there for the 9/11 stuff, so that was gonna be a dip.

You can and should look overall deregulation costs and trends and taxation and trickle-down theories, but this stuff is often set up well in advance.

So, definitely look at Biden and credit or criticize what he's doing for how long or how much things will matter in the long run, but if you look at the current state of the US economy or gas prices and blame (or credit) Biden, you're a dingus.

CF - With the evidence presented by the J6 committee have YOU changed your opinion?

The J6 committee is a kangaroo court and needs to shut down.

Have you watched any of it?  Almost every witness is a Republican who actively supported Trump.  The committee is bipartisan with the co-chair being a Cheney.

Nope and you know that ... hahaha. It's no secret so kind of funny you are trying to sell it. The panel is made up of seven Democrats and only two "Republicans" all appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She rejected several GOP members selected for the panel by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.  The two are rhino Republicans hand-picked by Democrats who are both losing their seats. Wouldn't be far fetched to see them as Independents or Democrats in the future.

By the way ... if you are going to use a Bush political name as a great reference then you might as well use Clinton. They proved a long time ago that politics don't matter as much as being on the inner circle of Washington. Liz has completely fallen into her father's footsteps.

A number of McCarthy’s picks were coconspirators to overthrow the election.  They did not belong on an investigative committee.  

If the evidence presented by the committee hasn’t changed your mind you are either incredibly stupid or anti-democracy.  

Have you listened to the Bannon tape?  TI know you love conspiracy theories.  You are looking the wrong direction.  

Liz Cheney is modern version of a Democrat Unionist in 1861.  Someone who doesn’t want to overthrow the government despite that being the party platform.

CF, I really think it's a mistake to dispose of these hearings as a partisan witch hunt.

It is bipartisan, honestly.  Cheney and Kinsinger are lifelong Republicans and are still conservatives.  They just aren't true believers in Trump's lies.

But it wouldn't even matter, anyway.

The format of the hearings is that they subpoena for answers -- they get them.  The people speaking ARE in the tank for Trump, but they're under oath.  It's just a series of questions and then Trump's own people answer with what he did.

Trump tried to overthrow the government.  It was a planned, intentional attack.  That is clear, from the mouths of his own team.  The reason is didn't work is partially because the system held up, but also because even though his team was OK with the charade, when it actually came down to committing treason, they couldn't go through with it.  ....maybe for self-preservation, maybe they just didn't think it could work.  But person after person testifying says that everyone in the room, including Trump, knew the claims were bullshit.  Everyone, except for a select few giving him bad advice, wanted him to make it stop, and he refused.

I hope I've earned some people's trust over the years of not being a whack-job -- this situation is pretty cut and dry.  Trump tried to overthrow democracy and these hearings bear that out 100% clearly -- and it's from the mouths of his own supporters and cabinet.