The Joe Biden Drops Out thread

[Woke Locc]

Originally Posted by Trexller [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Obama granted executive clemency more than any president since Truman. Including domestic terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera.

https://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-commutations

https://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-pardons

I thought Trump did that to rub noses in the executive privilege question

-Poke

[Trexller]

Originally Posted by Woke Locc [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I thought Trump did that to rub noses in the executive privilege question

-Poke

nah home boy is not any more petty than the rest of the political world. it just suits some peoples politics to call him out and then deny their own slights.

You wanna be in politics? you gotta be a dirtbag, right left or center. Nice guys will always finish last.

Obama is right up there with the best of them, dems just got lost in his demeanor, charisma and smile. Think he knew nothing about Blagojevich? lulz.

Hell i voted for the guy. twice. albeit the other choice was voMitt Romney. or mccain and a bimbo

[cd288]

Originally Posted by Trexller [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Obama granted executive clemency more than any president since Truman. Including domestic terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera.

https://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-commutations

https://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-pardons

Most of Obama's clemencies were due to reformations in sentencing rules and things like that (i.e. they were granted to many people who were serving way harsher sentences than they should for the crimes they committed and, by the way, most had already served more time than they reasonably should have). It's not even analogous to a President pardoning somebody who lied to Congress to obstruct in investigation into that President, especially when the person didn't even serve the bulk (or any) of their sentence before being pardoned.

Again, I am not a Democrat by any means so I don't say that with any bias. You've seemed like an intelligent person in the past, so I don't think you'd be stupid enough to actually think the Obama clemencies are comparable at all to what Trump did with Stone; I'm guessing you're just being willfully blind about it.

[Patriam1066]

Originally Posted by zodium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

i want separation of wealth and state. i want to arm every worker, abolish the cops, abolish every institution that enforce our systems of passive ownership. i want to direct what productive forces were developed so far to provide all workers the resources to reproduce their labor; to replace the current work organization process that begins with "seeking funding" from aristocrats with just "seeking material assistance" from relevant workers. globally.

i like your analysis. its a fun tom clancy take on things, but the reality is far simpler: the middle east is dying from ecological collapse. the arab elites are bending the knee to the colonizers. much like the american working class, the palestinians are being left to die.

Two questions:

1. Did you grow up in a household with a father?
2. Are you employed?

[Trexller]

Lying to congress occurs daily. Stone was sentenced to prison for jaywalking. The whole thing was a joke anyway, it was clinton revenge. They thought they could nail trump the way republicans did. Clinton didn't actually commit a crime until he denied his "activities" with monica while under oath. Dems figured trump was likely to slip up like that. Clinton should have just said, "She blew me, what of it?"

What most people don't get about trumpie is that he's not gonna fall for that, he is old school new york. Mobster style. Treat with your blood enemies, meet them on amicable terms, call them your friend etc.

#PaulCastellano2020

[douglas1999]

Hey what's goin on itt? *sees zodium quote* Oh!

[zodium]

crony capitalism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of free markets in general. but free markets only became crony capitalism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from free markets to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of free competition by monopoly. free competition is the basic feature of free markets, and of commodity production generally; monopoly is the exact opposite of free competition, but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our eyes, creating large-scale business and forcing out small business, replacing large-scale by still larger-scale business, and carrying concentration of growth and money to the point where out of it has grown and is growing monopoly: conglomerates, funds and trusts, and merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks, which manipulate thousands of billions. at the same time the monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts. monopoly is the transition from free markets to a higher system.

[Trexller]

Originally Posted by zodium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

crony capitalism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of free markets in general.

so you mean to tell us that at some point a few smart and unscrupulous people maneuvered themselves into a position to make a shitload of money, and they then used that position to make a shitload of money in a supercilious, underhanded manner?

Fake news. That never happens.

[douglas1999]

Originally Posted by zodium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

crony capitalism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of free markets in general. but free markets only became crony capitalism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from free markets to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of free competition by monopoly. free competition is the basic feature of free markets, and of commodity production generally; monopoly is the exact opposite of free competition, but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our eyes, creating large-scale business and forcing out small business, replacing large-scale by still larger-scale business, and carrying concentration of growth and money to the point where out of it has grown and is growing monopoly: conglomerates, funds and trusts, and merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks, which manipulate thousands of billions. at the same time the monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts. monopoly is the transition from free markets to a higher system.

Cool but just hit shift sometimes man

[BlackBellamy]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I can't criticize a pizza place for bad pizza because I've had bad pizza someplace else at some point in my life.

Sure you can! But it's the same pizza wherever you go. Biden pizza. Clinton pizza. Obama deep dish, but it's all the same. Trump is the Hawaiian pizza of pizzas. Everyone has an extreme opinion about the ham and pineapple, there is no middle ground. But at least that last pie is fun.

Trump is corrupt. Here is my list of recent administrations in corruption order: Bush II, Clinton, Nixon, Johnson, Trump, Obama, Ford, Bush I, Reagan, Carter. He's right in the middle for me. Opinions might differ, but I place low-level self-aggrandizement and nepotism a lot lower on the scale than blatant pay-for-play Clinton Foundation shenanigans or starting a war and actually legalizing torture so that your friends in Halliburton can get paid.

I hear your points. Most of them are just opinions like mine. You say he handled the Covid crisis badly and his focus is wrong but I disagree. I don't think anyone would have handled it any better and that too much reliance on scientists is a good way to get yourself killed. Like the Sith, scientists only think in absolutes. Scientists shouldn't be in charge of anything. You say he's pardoning people who obstructed investigations, but personally I'm absolutely horrified what happened to Roger Stone and I wouldn't have Trump's discipline in waiting until afterwards to commute his sentence. I don't think anyone other than Stone that Trump pardoned was in any way involved with him.

The only thing I'm going to have to disagree hard on a factual basis is the international situation. First your comment about legitimizing the Norks. North Korea is a legitimate sovereign nation-state and has been for a very long time. They have a border, armed forces and a government; they have international relations such as they are, they trade, and most importantly they can back up their nationhood with a giant pretty mushroom cloud. Not talking to them, not having relations with them is childish spite that does nothing except make them shoot missiles over Japan to show everyone they're still there. Trump went there, he talked to him a couple of times, they exchanged letters and sent a visitor back, it was real nice. Where is the disgrace? Oh we're descending to their level oh noes. We're not at their level. We're the mightiest of them all, but we should show some respect. We bombed the fuck out of them in the 50s and they came back stronger than ever. They took their respect, framed it, put it on the wall and stopped making noise. They've been recognized by the Master MC, the dream of every tin-pot nation and aspiring rapper everywhere.

I can give back on China, but you have to admit they hate him and haven't made any aggressive moves because they're not sure what he'll do. It was Obama's failed pivot-to-Asia that enraged them with our explicit talk of containment and their reaction was to build a dozen islands and claim the entire South China Sea. I like Trump's method, where he's just shitting on them constantly and banning their companies and arresting their executives and keeping them off-balance. I guess I'll take my containment like that.

But for Russia, you gotta pay attention. He fucked them economically. His sanctions screwed their off-shore oil business, they put a halt to the nearly-complete gas pipeline, and if you notice the ruble, which was on a solid run-up in the years before he got elected (thanks flexible Obama!) went into a free-fall in 2016 and has been doing pretty bad until very recently. Militarily I already mentioned the NATO expenditures, but we're also selling lethal weapons to the Ukronazis (I can't resist calling them that), and we effectively moved the eastern NATO border closer to him by 400 miles. There are US armored brigades practicing in Lithuania. Do you know the Poles are going to be getting the Abrams tank? Putin knows. His best buddy Lukashenko is having some kind of big crisis, and it's partly because our friends in the Ukraine (read: the CIA) put out ads in the Belarus media asking for Russian ex-soldiers who had combat experience in the Donbass to work as 'security' guards in some foreign land like Morocco for big bucks, and when they had 33 of them they put them up in a hotel, had them miss their flight, put them up in another hotel this close to Lukashenko's residence and then informed the Belarussian security forces that these guys were plotting a coup and the poor saps were promptly arrested and this caused a giant giant stink which destabilized everything because an enraged Putin pulled his support. The best is that the Ukraine immediately demanded formal extradition of those 33 guys because they were obvious Donbass war criminals, and those are some trials that Putin wants to avoid at all costs. Well played deliverers of lethal aid to the Ukraine, well played! There is a small chance that the Belarussian situation might cause the downfall of Putin. Now that would be some tasty four-dimensional cake!

We could do better than Trump, sure. I mean it's possible. I can't think of a single qualified individual in the entire world that could do the job better though. I mean I don't know everyone of course, but I'm given candidates by the parties, by the media, and they're like here you go, these are the men and women, go choose among them. I looked at everyone they gave us in 2016 both parties, and now 2020 same thing and what have you got? Not a single person with the executive experience, with a tough management style, no one with force and energy. No one just speaking their minds. All just a bunch of fucking caretakers and pretenders and one aging Communist. Every single one of them looks like a person who can't act until they confer, until they reach consensus, until enough people lick their assholes to tell them how right they are.

What saddens me the most I think is not the lack of qualified challengers for Trump but that there is no one waiting in the wings. Think about 2024. Who we're gonna get? Beto again? Haley? Gaetz? I mean I'm ready to vote for another television personality or whatever. Too bad Captain Picard can't run. Avery Brooks is gonna be 76, otherwise a sure vote from me. Brad Pitt? So handsome and just the right age but...yeah no. I wish Marlon Brando was alive. He knew about respect.

At least the spirit lives on.

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