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It's unfortunate but I started taking my business to Buckeye for a lot of the reasons Joe mentioned. Eventually I got to liking the electric karts and not having to hang out in a cold warehouse. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if Buckeye is on the verge of shutting down as well.

I read through some of the "Kraken" affidavits and it really just made me sad that people who otherwise had normal lives and careers are now resorting to debasing themselves with conspiracy theories, and poorly conceived ones even as far as conspiracy theories go. And now we have unsealed court documents about an investigation into a "pay for pardon" scheme at the white house. I'm guessing this will go down as: - There was no pay for pardon scheme at the white house - OK, there was a pay for pardon scheme at the white house but Trump didn't know about it - OK, Trump knew about the pay for pardon scheme but that's not illegal - OK, the pay for pardon scheme was illegal but it's no big deal and everyone does it

People determine elections. It's not anyone's fault that a lot of people live on the coasts and in cities. The huge swath in the middle already has more power than it would in a true democracy because of the electoral college and the senate. A voter in Wyoming has 3x the power as the average American. Is that not enough? How much more should that vote count than ours? 4x? 6x? What would be fair?

My response is that yep, Biden did all of those things. Good for him. 1) Biden got a lot of votes. So did Trump. This election was truly a all-out brawl with both sides determined to turn out as many voters as possible. 2) Bellweather counties and states change. Trump broke down the "Blue wall" in 2016. Historical indicators can be useful for predictions, but things change. 3) Biden underperformed Clinton in a lot of demographics. This is true. And he overperformed her in others. That's how he won. 4) Rephrased, Trump underperformed against Republicans as a whole. As has been pointed out, this means that either Democrats were incompetent at stealing the election, or Trump was particularly unpopular among Republicans. I think there's ample evidence of the latter. 5) Presidents losing re-election is a very, very small data set. I wouldn't make anything of this data point. (eta: It hasn't happened since 1992. Is it safe to say the political climate in 2020 is drastically different from that in 1992? If yes, it's hard to compare Trump's primary performance to H.W.'s, and therefore any previous 1-termer as well). What's missing from that article is any actual evidence of how Democrats cheated. This article is the exact same sort of thing that Trump's legal team presented in court, and all of those cases got thrown out. You can't Just Ask Questions forever, at some point you need to present hard evidence. This, sadly for Trump, isn't it. eta: Oh, and the article does repeat the lie that there were more votes than registered voters in certain places. Articles really ought not to lie about things, I think.

Of course, you don't have to be a citizen to be here legally. I've got a friend from Bangladesh who's been here about 6 or 7 years now, first on a student visa for his undergrad degree, then on a different student visa for his master's degree (he didn't want a master's but he couldn't find a job that would sponsor him and he was about to be sent home), and then finally with 2 degrees he was able to find a job that sponsored him, I'm not sure what his visa category is now. But there's a time limit on that so he's got to keep playing the game. And then I figure once he's in his early 30s he might be able to apply for citizenship, after having lived here his entire adult life. It's pretty crazy. But as you can see, the only reason he was able to get his foot in the door is because his parents had enough money to be able to put him on a plane at 18, by himself, and send him to college, AND he was able to get accepted to a college in the US, AND he was able to get a student visa. If his family were poor, or if he'd had worse luck, he'd have been SOL and would still be in Bangladesh.

I mean, xenophobia, really. 100 years ago the the general federal government policy was focused on population growth in order to settle the vast amount of territory we'd acquired by that point, and it needed immigrants to do so. In the '20s laws were passed to limit immigration from non-Western European countries, and then later laws were passed to limit Chinese/Asian immigration. I'm not a historian but I don't think there was any rational basis for these laws other than to keep America WASPy. Our current immigration policy is mostly derived from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which kept the country-of-origin quotas but shifted to a category-based immigration policy, which favored family members of US citizens and skilled laborers. It was intended to be a "merit-based" system and effectively blocked a lot of the low-skilled, working-class immigrants that were a staple of US immigration in the time period you're alluding to. It's now basically impossible to immigrate to the US unless you have a personal connection and/or are sponsored under something like an H1-B program. That's just getting here. Becoming a citizen is a whole different challenge. I'm not smart on that but the gist there is that you have to be a resident for a while and show, like, that you've been a productive earner and stayed out of trouble for 10 years or so before you can apply. That's why it takes on average something like 12-15 years.

For most people in the world, there is no legal path to US citizenship. If you're, say, a plumber in Ecuador without any family connection to the US, there is basically 0 chance of becoming a US citizen legal, ever, in your entire life. It has nothing to do with "wanting to be a citizen" for most people. Are you interested in learning more about how broken our immigration system is? There's bipartisan support for overhauling it (talks within the Republican party famously broke down when Trump kept changing his mind on what he was willing to sign until senate Republicans eventually gave up), but the changes proposed by both sides wouldn't give our Ecuadorian plumber any better chances at legal immigration. Libertarians are the only ones truly in favor of a permissive, legal path to immigration for anyone with a clean background check.

For starters, he shouldn't have disbanded the federal pandemic response team in 2018. I can go on, but I'm genuinely not sure if that's a serious question, because a whole heap of stuff that Trump did and didn't do is at odds with the recommendations of public heath and infection disease experts. He also went out of his way to undermine local (state) efforts at controlling the disease within their own borders (LIBERATE!). He shouldn't have done that. He should have promoted mask wearing instead of calling the whole thing a hoax. I can present evidence to support the actual impact of those simple things if you're receptive to it. The problem is that we can never really know. We can look at how other countries handle it and how they fared better, we can look at the difference in red/blue states and counties and the impact those more local decisions had, we can listen to what the experts here in America at the federal level say they would have done differently. But ultimately someone can look at all of that and still decide that Trump couldn't have done any better than he did, that the current situation in America was inevitable and that this is the best possible outcome. So I don't know if I can change anyone's mind, or if I should even bother.

If I've "rubbed in" the Biden victory anywhere in this thread, please point it out to me and I'll apologize. I have "rubbed in" Trump not being able to produce any evidence of election fraud. Is that condescending? Probably. But I think some things are worthy of derision. It's hard to point out when someone is wrong without being condescending, and especially hard for me to do it -- that's a personality flaw I've carried my whole life, and it certainly comes out much more on the internet than in person. So... what tactics can we employ to get people to stop buying into obvious lies from conmen that aren't condescending? When we can't even get them to admit that they got conned? I guess "not even try" is an option, but then, like you, I only come back to this thread for entertainment. I don't think anyone here takes it seriously. And, as they say, it takes two to tango, and I certainly haven't escaped any name calling or insults here. Or a lecture or two

Sure. Please understand that saying "It's your choice" makes it seem like you don't think it's a difficult choice, and saying "I'm getting together with family anyway" makes it seem like many are sacrificing in vain. If your situation allows it just know that that makes you lucky, and maybe don't rub it in. I suspect if we were having this conversation face to face and I said I was bummed I couldn't get together with family, you wouldn't have said either of those things. If this tactic bothers you, why didn't you call out nurkvinny for bringing up Pelosi and Cuomo in response to criticism about Trump? You gave him a pass while writing a couple of essays towards me. Is it because you just don't like me?

You're right, it IS a choice. I'm choosing to listen to CDC recommendation and the urging of public health experts who are concerned about ICU capacity in Ohio right now. You're, I guess, choosing not to listen to those warnings. Even if you disagree with my decision not to see my family, please accept that it fucking sucks right now, that my choices are to either not enjoy the holiday or feel guilty for putting healthcare workers under greater strain. I'm surprised that's new to you, it's been part of the national vocabulary since Kellyanne "Alternative Facts" Conway suggested early in 2017 that a different set of facts might explain why it appeared that Trump and Sean Spicer were lying about his inauguration attendance. There's a difference in scope and scale. Pelosi foolishly encouraging people to get together for Chinese New Year and Trump foolishly encouraging people to LIBERATE MICHIGAN are not the same thing. Like, not even the same sport. Somewhere upthread someone said that saying "But Trump" was typical liberal deflection or something along those lines. So here we have a case of someone asking for a way that Trump made my life worse, and I answered -- his poor handling of the pandemic made my life worse. "But Pelosi" was the response. Is that a valid response, or is it typical liberal deflection?

And there you have it. How are we supposed to find common ground when we're working from a different set of facts? Yes, Trump banned travel from China. Travel bans in a pandemic are part of the playbook, and Trump did move earlier on the ban than some were suggesting. The travel ban from China did not work, however. It was "too little, too late," even on Jan 31st, and then Trump squandered any goodwill he may have garnered with the ban by bungling the next 10 months of federal response. Yes, Pelosi was dumb for her Chinese New Year's comment. She was trying to combat Trump's xenophobic rhetoric about how this was all China's fault. I mean fuck, at my kid's school they were playing Corona tag and running away from the Chinese kids, making them cry. So yes, Pelosi fucked up. Cuomo fucked too, for that matter. Trump fucked up bigger. You can't point to a handful of things that Democrats got wrong and expect me not to see the facts before me that say, clear as day, Trump's handling of the pandemic was a disaster. But good on you for caring about our local healthcare workers.

"After the election you'll see, it's all miraculously going to go away." It'd be hilarious if it weren't reality.

What a strange thing to say as we all go into a holiday weekend where we can't see our families. If you won't accept "mismanaging the federal response to a pandemic" as a way in which we're all worse off because of Trump, there's nothing you'll accept.

What happens when you accuse liberals of living in media echo chamber while living in your media echo chamber? Does the universe collapse?

I think bang-for-your-buck, the Focus is still a winner. 2500 lbs, fun to drive, you'll be able to find parts even in the boonies. https://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/d/columbus-2007-ford-focus-hatchback/7234883759.html

Why?

Here's twice where you said "I think there's something to [these claims of large-scale voter fraud, enough to change the outcome of the election.]" You can pretend like you were JUST ASKING QUESTIONS but seriously... you thought there was something there and there wasn't. Many of us knew from the beginning that there wasn't something there worth investigating. Look, take the voter fraud out of the equation. You're acting like someone who thought that Bernie Madoff was worth hearing out. "I'm just saying, let's listen to what he has to say, he's made a lot of people really rich without any risk!" And then when it became apparent that he was a fraud you say, "Look all I'm saying is I think people should be investing in their retirements." You're bypassing the real issue by making it about voter fraud, or the courts, or "letting it all play out." The issue is that you bought some bullshit from someone who's a proven, known liar. You got scammed. You even almost bet me $1000, which would have been the easiest money I've ever made because it was bleedingly obvious to anyone with a working bullshit detector that nothing was going to come of it. Generally when people are wrong about things they focus on self-improvement so it doesn't happen again. I know I do, it's how we grow. You, too, can grow. Use this opportunity.

It's frustrating that the "sane" Republicans have been willing to indulge Trump's lunacy for 4 years with this same rationale. Like, yeah, they can say it's all theatrics at this point, and Trump isn't actually planning a soft coup, and "the system worked" because the courts have smacked him down. But at the same time, this episode has caused lasting damage to our country. We have "Stop the Steal" protests across the country. Election officials in I think almost all of these battleground states, mostly Republicans themselves, have been receiving death threats and are being provided with extra security protection. Election officials! The least controversial government job imaginable. We've got Republican legislatures proposing banning mail-in voting altogether. And we've got a riled-up electorate who's going to view Biden's entire term as illegitimate, which will therefore excuse no amount of political bullshittery and/or tearing down our political institutions in order to oppose anything he does. It may have been theatrics for the Republican powers-that-be, but it was certainly not theatrics for a lot of Trump voters.

Are you ready to reflect on how you got duped by a conman?

Not everyone....

Clay my kids were sent home yesterday with all of their stuff and told not to expect to come back on Monday. I haven't seen anything from the school board but I'd expect she's not going to be missing much here shortly. As I'm sure you saw, staffing seems to be the primary issue, my kids have said some days they sit in the cafeteria for hours because there aren't any subs. I'm like, well shit, why am I sending them to school to do homework? Long winter indeed.

I think it's in the next covid relief bill.

That's fucked up. Sorry to hear that.

Two hardcore Trump supporters die and ascend to heaven. God meets them at the pearly gates and asks if they have any questions. One of them says, “Yes, what were the real results of the 2020 election and who was behind the fraud?”. God says, "My son, there was no fraud. Biden won the electoral college fair and square, 306 to 232”. After a few seconds of stunned silence, the one guy turns to the other and whispers, “This goes higher up than we thought”.