USA Politics

[arpeggio]

No doubt some posters on GMG actually believe Biden wrote his speech.

And some posters believe the world is only 10,000 years old, so what?

[BasilValentine]

Another article about the current state of mail (in LA):  people have been ordering more goods during the pandemic, so now with cutbacks of both staff and/or hours, and removal of sorting machines, you have rotting steaks, fruit, dead chicks and dead crickets and rats(!) running around there, and other mail piling up too--like people's medicines!

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-20/usps-cutbacks-post-office-chaos

PD

The scumbags who prepared and orchestrated this never think of the extended consequences of their actions. Republicans have been looking to privatize the USPS for decades. Lowlifes like DeJoy have positioned themselves to profit from privitization by buying stock in or running companies that will be waiting to pick up the slack or devour pieces of the corpse. Reminds me of how the Soviet Union's elite carved up state run industry after the fall (and yes, I know the USPS isn't state run) — except the Russians used bought and paid for judges, bogus tax indictments, fraudulent documents of incorporation, and the torture and murder of whistle blowers like Sergei Magnitsky (of Magnitsky Act fame — you know, the legal action whose hoped for repeal was a primary reason Putin wanted Trump in the White House) to accomplish their ends. The criminal scum surrounding Trump are the wanna-be oligarchs of the state the Trumpists want to establish. 

[JBS]

You didn't read carefully. DeJoy said the cost cutting measures will be discontinued. He quite pointedly did not mention reversing the actions already taken. If the postal handlers reports are true, equipment has already been destroyed. Service will not resume as usual unless the automated equipment is put back into service immediately. Removing more than half the sorting machines has already crippled service.

It's not the handlers' jobs on the line. Every one of those workers will now be more essential. It's machinery that's being retired. In other words, the waste of millions of dollars in material assets. So what do you think is going to happen to the retired sorting machines? I would guess that in the not too distant future they'll be auctioned off and bought up cheaply by private logistics firms like the ones implicated in DeJoy's conflicts of interest.

If the reports are true, the machines are being scrapped in a way that makes them worth nothing more than scrap metal.

[71 dB]

Biden speaks from a place Trump doesn't know — the heart

It's just kind words. Platitudes. It means nothing. Biden sold his heart decades ago. Anyone with a heart would talk about the necessity of medicare for all in the middle of a pandemic. Biden has made it very clear he wants to be Republican light. He can't wait for the opportunity to make compromises on top of compromises with the Republicans on the expense of regular people watering down everything American need so badly.

[drogulus]

If the reports are true, the machines are being scrapped in a way that makes them worth nothing more than scrap metal.

     They may be worth something as evidence.

[JBS]

It's just kind words. Platitudes. It means nothing. Biden sold his heart decades ago. Anyone with a heart would talk about the necessity of medicare for all in the middle of a pandemic. Biden has made it very clear he wants to be Republican light. He can't wait for the opportunity to make compromises on top of compromises with the Republicans on the expense of regular people watering down everything American need so badly.

If tests are not available/take too long to return results, if hospitals don't have enough space or equipment for patients, if the vaccine can't be rolled out in a timely fashion, if people don't wear masks to prove they hate experts...which is what's going on now here...who pays for it has no bearing.

It also makes no sense in the middle of the pandemic to tell the millions of Americans who do have health insurance that you want to force them into a plan which at best will not give them better than what they have now, and will probably give them worse.

Remember, just because you, a European leftist, thinks something is good, doesn't mean it is good, and does not mean that most Americans think it is good.

[Herman]

It's just kind words. Platitudes. It means nothing.

And the funny thing is, what you're writing is just words, too. Only not 'kind' but cynical.

And they're words written by a guy safely thousands of miles away behind a keyboard, desperate to have impact.

Interesting btw you've switched away from the 'cognitive decline' thing.

[Todd]

It's just kind words.

Written by someone else, to boot.

[Herman]

Diner Cop's big headline: presidential candidates use speech writers.

[BasilValentine]

Diner Cop's big headline: presidential candidates use speech writers.

Understandable on Todd's part: For a Trump supporter, speech writers are the people who write what their candidate doesn't want to say, because his thoughts are too vile and stupid for public presentation and they're trying to make him sound like a complete adult person with a conscience, intelligence, and other human faculties. For Biden and other candidates, by contrast, a speech writer's job is to talk to the candidate and to divine what he/she wants to say and to articulate it more clearly and forcefully than the candidate is able to on his or her own. I've done work of this kind and that's how it's done.

[Todd]

Understandable on Todd's part: For a Trump supporter, speech writers are the people who write what their candidate doesn't want to say, because his thoughts are too vile and stupid for public presentation and they're trying to make him sound like a complete adult person with a conscience, intelligence, and other human faculties. For Biden, and other candidates, by contrast, a speech writer's job is to talk to the candidate and to divine what he/she wants to say and to articulate it more clearly and forcefully than the candidate is able to on his or her own. I've done work of this kind and that's how it's done.

World-class political analysis, only on GMG.

[BasilValentine]

World-class political analysis, only on GMG.

In other words, you can't dispute a word of my post, you know it's all true, but you, like your candidate, can never admit you're wrong and have to resort to ad hominem comment when you're caught out. Have I divined the essence of your thoughts?

[Todd]

In other words, you can't dispute a word of my post, you know it's all true, but you, like your candidate, can never admit you're wrong and have to resort to ad hominem comment when you're caught out. Have I divined the essence of your thoughts?

[Florestan]

Understandable on Todd's part: For a Trump supporter, speech writers are the people who write what their candidate doesn't want to say, because his thoughts are too vile and stupid for public presentation and they're trying to make him sound like a complete adult person with a conscience, intelligence, and other human faculties. For Biden and other candidates, by contrast, a speech writer's job is to talk to the candidate and to divine what he/she wants to say and to articulate it more clearly and forcefully than the candidate is able to on his or her own. I've done work of this kind and that's how it's done.

Do you really believe that Biden ever read Kierkegaard? Or that the average American ever heard about Kierkegaard?

[mc ukrneal]

Do you really believe that Biden ever read Kierkegaard? Or that the average American ever heard about Kierkegaard?

Of course we have - he's in Star Trek isn't he! Duh!

[Florestan]

Of course we have - he's in Star Trek isn't he! Duh!

[JBS]

Do you really believe that Biden ever read Kierkegaard? Or that the average American ever heard about Kierkegaard?

Most people have heard the name. Almost anyone who's gone to college will know who he is. It's Harvey that would draw blank looks.

[Florestan]

Most people have heard the name. Almost anyone who's gone to college will know who he is. It's Harvey that would draw blank looks.

Most American people have heard the name? I doubt it very .much, honestly. I think most people around the world have not heard the name, Romanians included.

Be it as it .might, I think it's just intellectual sham. Heck, "he" could have quoted any number if American philosophers and writers, couldn't "he"? Why Kierkegaard of all people, I do Wonder?

I mean, he was Scandinavian by extension but no leftist at all.

[Todd]

Most American people have heard the name?

It is a dubious assertion.  It would kind of be fun to see some type of poll showing the best known philosophers in the US.

[71 dB]

Interesting btw you've switched away from the 'cognitive decline' thing.

No I haven't.